


This Old Death

by handful_ofdust



Series: Death Is A Friend (Of Ours) [1]
Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:43:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1990179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handful_ofdust/pseuds/handful_ofdust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick doesn't go into Atlanta, because he meets the Governor coming out of it. Things change, and stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What began all this was zihna's brilliant "Short Change Hero," plus the realization that yes, sometimes you really do have to write the fic you want to read.

NOW:

  
The meet is at some farm store Daryl found, three miles from the prison. They get there early, let Morgan find a position, then wait—Michonne and Daryl outside, Rick in, watching through the shades. He's still all taped up underneath the kevlar vest he got off what used to be a guard, throat bruised extensively but ribs not actually broken, for all they feel it. Shane's doc, Hershel, says he's lucky, which he already knows; having Philip Blake on top of you is never anything to laugh about, no matter the circumstances. Offered Rick what drugs they had, which he refused. He needs to be upright for this, with all his faculties about him, or he knows he might yet be overborne, if push comes to shove. Charm _is_ Philip's strong suit, after all, once the blood-tide dims. He can be...persuasive.

  
That last wound, though—maybe it'll throw him off, even now he's had some time to recover. Especially once he sees Daryl sneering up at him, still holding the crossbow which dealt it.

  
The Governor's escort pulls in late but not overly so, a tight cordon—two SUVs plus a military truck, Philip's favourite car in the middle. _Had to stop and ask for directions, maybe._ The usual suspects pile out, taking up defensive stance: Martinez, Shumpert, Garjulio. Rowan, her hair cut raggedly short since the last time Rick saw her and eyes red, like she's been crying, hugging that asthmatic kid Noah's AK like it gives her strength. Since he'd be there if he could—worships Philip, that one—Rick can only assume he didn't make it.

  
 _I'll bet you know the names of everyone who died that night,_ a dim voice says, from somewhere deep inside him. _Not like at the prison, 'sides from Lori, Carl...Shane._

  
Hershel's daughter, the fierce older one, with her boyfriend, that Korean kid; that quiet woman Carol, with her headscarf, and her knives. Andrea, a good three months along to where Lori was, the first time Rick saw her again; just starting to show, and carrying high. Odds are it's Philip's, though by her own admission, might be just as well be Shane's too. _That_ 'd be lightning striking twice.

  
At which point, like he heard Rick think his name, comes the man himself—Philip Blake, Woodbury's self-elected “Governor,” unfolding from seated to full height in one quick twist, like a magic trick. Standing there with hands braced on hips, wavering too slightly for most to notice, they hadn't seen him all day, every day for the last three years. He looks like he's lost ten pounds in a week, rangier than ever, close-wrapped in a long black preacher's coat Rick thinks must be new; head cocked just a bit too much to the left, like he's having trouble hearing, or holding it straight. That bandage over his arrow-split left socket looks vaguely yellow-tinted, which might just as easily be pus as disinfectant, and his usually neat-groomed hair sticks up here and there, sweat-messed...but then again, it _is_ hot. Doesn't mean anything, not necessarily.

  
 _Stop trying to read him from twenty damn feet away, for Christ's sake. Think about what you're gonna say once he gets here, instead, 'fore he sidebars you, like he's no doubt planning to._

  
Michonne's sources—the Woodburyite Fifth Column, those same elusive mystery traitors Philip used to rail about, back when—all claim the infection Daryl's arrow left behind almost spread to his other eye before the doctors caught it, which implies he's probably still hopped up on as much painkillers and penicillin they could pump into him. In and out for ten days with fever, give or take, whispering to proxies and getting his bidding done long-distance while he lay there studying the ceiling, listening to Woodbury cleanse itself after Rick's three-way pod attack. They've had protocols in place for a cut-and-run scenario since the beginning, drilling for it as recently as three months ago, but if Rick knows the Governor, he won't give up “his” town 'til it's nigh uninhabitable; probably got at least one wall back up by now, what with the surviving citizens working hammer and tongs, though he doubts they're gonna be holding any more walker-fight barbecues anytime soon. Still, “Life During Wartime” always has been his favourite song, at least metaphorically speaking.

  
Outside, Philip pauses to stretch, taking his sweet time, before waving towards the treeline. “Morgan,” he booms, affable as ever, like he can see him. Then turns to the others with similar nonchalance, nodding first right, then left: “Michonne. Dixon Junior.”

  
“Fuck you, you big bitch,” Daryl greets him, deadpan.

  
“Bodyguards stay outside,” Michonne warns, at almost the same time, “or Morgan starts taking headshots. Understand?”

  
“Sure. Exactly the way I'd've handled it.”

  
Daryl: “Uh huh. No surprise there.”

  
'Cause: _He still doesn't trust you, not really,_ that same dim voice comments, inside Rick's aching ribcage. _Thinks you're Philip's stooge, and why not? He's never known you any other way, beyond that night, or every night after. You're gonna have to work, you want to prove your bona fides. Think you can do that, Officer Friendly? Think it's worth the doing?_

  
Well: Yeah, he can, and yeah, it is. Though mostly 'cause there's nothing else, in context.

  
“See y'all soon, boys,” the Governor calls back to his entourage without turning, and strides inside, shutting the feed store door behind him—into the cavernous cool and dark, sawdust-smelling, where Rick's already taken up his place at table, trying not wince as he sits.

  
“Philip,” he says, not looking up.

  
“Richard,” Philip replies.

  
***

  
“The people at the prison say they need your word you're gonna leave 'em alone,” Rick repeats, patiently, as Philip's long fingers drum the table between them. “They don't want anything but to be left in peace. No competition. They're nowhere near you, or Woodbury. They're gonna start a garden, a farm, get self-sufficient. No need for us to even interact, you don't want to.”

  
“Uh huh. And this is Shane's group, right, with Daryl, Lori—Carl? Michonne and Andrea?” Rick nods. “You, from now on?”

  
“That's right.”

  
“Not acceptable.” Philip shakes his head, firmly.“There's gotta be restitutions, Richard. These people rely on me, and they just lost thirteen good souls. I can't go back to 'em with nothing.”

  
“Not my concern.”

  
“It used to be, though, didn't it?” Leaning forward, pressing harder, as Rick pauses to think. “I'm tellin' you, folks are spooked—that's the most successful attack we've ever lived through. Milton dead, me—like this...they need reassurances. Just like they need to know where you went.”

  
“That's not gonna happen, Philip.”

  
“And why not?”

  
“Because I led a damn walker army across your doorstep, that's why—three, from three different directions. The perfect storm we always feared. You have that bunch under your thumb, true enough, but with the best will in the world, I still can't see any way they'd just let that one slide.”

  
Philip laughs. “Oh, Rick. You really think I told 'em you were involved? Thought you _knew_ me, buddy. No, the way I put it, you must've gotten yourself kidnapped by Michonne and Daryl here on your way out—they saw a chance to pay me back and took it by taking my good right hand, same's I did with Merle, sort of. And believe you me, that particular legend went 'round like wildfire, whipping folks into a frenzy; got more volunteers wanting payback than I did for last year's Fourth of July, with no fried chicken involved. 'Cause those people _love_ you, Rick, and that's the plain truth...they'd do anything for you, without you even havin' to ask. You know that.”

  
“And they believed you.”

  
“They do tend to,” Philip points out.

  
 _More fool them,_ Rick thinks, grimly, though he can't disagree. Still: “I can't believe you did that,” he says, which is an outright, bald-faced lie. If Philip knows he knows so, however, he gives no sign; just shrugs, sighing. Like they've been playing chess and Rick just once again threw away an opportunity to mate him two moves over, in order to save some stupid pawn.

  
“Walk outside with me, then,” he suggests, “if it disturbs you so much that even after all this, I still want them to think well of you. Show 'em all. Explain how you put their loved ones in danger, to the point of gettin' some of 'em killed, just 'cause Shane Walsh, Daryl goddamn Dixon and little miss No-Last-Name Michonne somehow convinced you I _might_ be contemplating something you don't have a shred of genuine evidence I ever intended to go through with, concerning your lovely wife and that bastard daughter of hers.”

  
“You said yourself how I know you.”

  
“Ah yes, and isn't _that_ the truth of the matter, Officer Grimes? _So_ very well.” Rick finds he's already glancing down, face heated, before he can quite think to stop himself; sees Philip's remaining eye flash a little as he makes himself look back up, insulted, annoyed. “Aw, c'mon now—don't tell me you're _embarassed._ Hell, I got more to lose on that scale of public opinion than you do by far, with your still-alive wife and kid. _Kids,_ you count the bastard—”

  
“Don't call her that.”

  
“You're right. Not my business. Never was.”

  
“Listen, your wife, Penny—they're not gone, not forever, just 'cause they're not here anymore. You did your best by them. They'll always be there for you, Philip.”

  
“Hmmm, yup. Well, Penny sure would've, at least—if somebody hadn't convinced me to put her down, that is, like a dog.”

  
That darkness in his voice sending it even deeper, dipping it 'til he doesn't sound entirely human. It wasn't so hot, Rick might actually be inclined to shiver.

  
“Your choice,” he reminds him. “You know it was the only thing left for her. What any good father would do.”

  
“Maybe. Let's hope you never have to find out.”

  
“That a threat?”

  
Rick's already on his feet, creaking ribs and all, but Philip just sits there, looking at him. “It's a certainty,” he says. “You know it, I know it. This is how we live, now. We kill or we die; we die, and we kill. Nobody's exempt, whether you love 'em or not.” He leans forward then, swifter than Rick's ready for, and continues: “One way or another, though, you can't stay with them, anyhow. Not now I know where everything that can hurt you most lays down every night, and you've already put the idea of acting on that knowledge in my mind.”

  
“I don't—”

  
“Sssh, Richard. Just listen.” He's talking faster, voice lighter, yet no less disturbing. “They'll be fine, won't they? Sure they will; Shane'll die takin' care of 'em, whether you're around or not. And the prison's a pretty good place to hide, in the usual run of things, but me, I'm not gonna stop 'til you come home. _You_ know how many guns I got, don't you? Did Michonne tell you we found this other camp, where a guy has a tank?”

  
“...she did.”

  
“Perfect. Well, this guy seems to know what he's doing, so I'm willin' to bet he can bring those walls down pretty damn quick. After that, meanwhile—we been banking biters, one in the kitty for every one we burn, just waitin' to send 'em back your way. Weaponized zombies, now; that's a damn smart idea. Wish I'd thought of it...but then, that's what I used to have _you_ for.”

  
Rick stares at him, caught, close enough to feel the heat coming off his skull, an invisible fever-crown. He feels his world start to reel. How'd this get so out of control, so quickly?

  
“What is _wrong_ with you, Philip?” is all he can think to ask, finally. To which Philip simply shakes his head, and answers—

  
“I don't know, Rick, truly. Never have. And here you were, always telling me I was a good person!” The laugh is bitter, twisting in his throat. “Did it so convincingly, I almost got to believe it myself. But we can pretend again, can't we? I mean, if you just worked on it long enough, hard enough...”

“Oh, Christ.”

  
“Point is, you can't leave me like this, goddamnit—not alone. I killed my little girl for you.”

  
“Philip, for God's sake...she was dead already.”

  
“You don't know what I was like, before, or what I'll be like after, either. _I_ don't even...”

  
“That's not my fault.”

  
“ _Oh yes it is._ Everything I do, from now on, it's _all_ gonna be your fault. So know that, Richard. Everywhere you go, I'm gonna be two steps behind, and gaining. It's just gonna go on and on. And in the end, whoever you fetch up with, they're gonna get down on their damn knees and _beg_ you to come back to me.”

  
They're both on their feet now, Philip looming, Rick panting a bit, chest constricted under tape; his heart pounds, breath harsh and loud in his ears. Philip looks like he doesn't know what to do with any given part of himself, every trace of the affable politician simply gone; he seems drunk, berserker-tranced. Something—not a tear—streaks from beneath his bandage, but he doesn't move to wipe it away, just stares at his own raised hands until he calms far enough to lower them, cross his arms, jam them beneath his elbows.

  
“My mistake,” he says, slowly, “was in treating you like you were me, 'cause you're not. But that's okay. You care too much, that's your problem, and it's a good problem to have, for P.R. purposes. Someone should.”

  
“Philip—”

  
“I'm going now. You think it over a couple of days, and then you decide what you want to trade me, in return for me leavin' them alone: Daryl, for my eye...Andrea's baby, when it comes. 'Cause you know damn well it's mine, already...”

  
“Philip, shit—”

  
“...or you. Him, or her, or you. That's the deal. I'm only gonna say it once.” Rick swallows, tongue dry, mouth gone dumb. “You don't have to lose face. Just get Michonne to tie you up, throw you back towards Woodbury at the point of her sword. People'll be cheering in the streets to see you again, Rick. And things'll go right on back to the way they were.”

  
His voice getting fainter now, as he retreats through the gloom, towards the door. Rick leaning on the table, feeling like he's about to faint. _Jesus,_ he thinks. _Oh, shit. What a mistake this all was._

  
“I'm not angry,” the Governor lies, logical, plausible, as though he's explaining gravity. “Just need you to stay with me, Richard, and remind me how I'm not too far gone, even now. I need to trust you on that. Or...well. All things considered, I just don't know _what_ might happen.”

  
 _Uh huh,_ Rick thinks, sick. _But I do._

  
Remembering the tanks, the heads. The mortal remains of Penny Blake worrying at her leash, determined to reach whoever came within range. The gladiatorial pit. Merle Dixon's hand, there, then not; his stump, gushing blood. Him tumbling out through the fence, borne on the force of Philip's kick, as the walkers clustered and yowled; fresh meat, for once.

  
And then, at the same time, superimposed: faces, mostly innocent, aside from “betrayals” so long gone they pre-date this sorrowful current world. Carl, Lori, Shane. The baby.

  
There's a sound of tires screeching on blacktop, and Daryl looks in, Michonne at his elbow. She's doing that thing that's not quite a scowl, her “concerned” look.

  
“Looks like that didn't go so well,” Daryl says.

  
“Nope,” Rick replies, doubling up. And pukes on the floor, all shock and bile, right into the sawdust in front of his chair.


	2. Chapter 2

THEN:  


  
True to his last words to Morgan, Rick's heading towards Atlanta on that horse he picked up when he meets a jeep coming out of it, ex-army by the make and paint-job, with a small caravan of cars, vans and RVs trailing behind. Can't see who's driving with the sun reflecting straight off the windshield, but there are men in the back, all armed, all civilians—some big black guy, male Hispanic in a backwards-set baseball cap, and a 40-something white man so tall he looks like he comes with his own weather system, who waves at Rick as he thumbs the walkie-talkie in his hand, murmuring something into it.

  
Seconds later, the jeep slows to a halt, neatly blocking Rick's way, and they consider each other a long moment, Rick resisting the urge to drop his hand to his gun-butt; nothing immediately threatening about him, but you want to be cautious, don't you? Given.

  
“Evenin', Officer,” the man says at last, voice one big rumble, as he smiles down at Rick—a friendly gesture, ostensibly, though it doesn't quite seem to reach his mild, assessing eyes. “You headed for the city?”

  
“I was, yeah.”

  
“Well, now...that'd be a mistake, in my opinion. Nobody left in there but the dead, and us chickens barely just managed to get out ahead of 'em.”

  
“What about the refugee centers?”

  
The man's eyes narrow further, blue as old denim. “Those've been down for weeks; four at least, maybe five. Where're you comin' from, exactly? Your information's 'bout three months out of date.”

  
A great wave of panic splashes up over Rick, making him want to rear in his stirrups, just kick the horse and flee: Carl, Lori, Christ! For a split second he sees her wavering down the street like Mrs Morgan, her face slack yet hungry, their boy's blood crusted on her mouth, and it burns in his veins like venom.

  
The Hispanic man sees what it's doing to him and goes to raise his gun, but the tall man waves him still. Asking Rick, as he does—

  
“Listen, Officer...mind if I come a little closer? Hard to talk, like this.” At Rick's look: “C'mon now, I don't mean you any harm, none of us do. See, I'll leave my gun—Shumpert, mind takin' this a minute? Thank you.”

  
Even once he clambers down, his head's still flush with the horse's shoulder; he lays one big hand on the skittish beast's flank, drawing a snort, and keeps right on staring, calm and level, his gaze anchoring Rick's with ridiculous ease.

  
“You got people you think would've gone to Atlanta when things fell apart,” he continues, equally quiet, like he's gentling a dog, “that about right? Family? 'Course you do. But they're long gone by now, Officer, no way they're not. Probably headed out for some campsite nearby, just like us; might even be when we get there, finally, we'll find 'em waiting. Though of course, it's not like we'll be able to recognize 'em, you aren't right there along with us...”

  
Fifteen minutes later, somehow, Rick finds himself and the horse following along after at a tight clop, bag of guns still heavy on his back. They reach Nazareth Boy Scout Campsite by dusk, and Rick almost believes that because Carl went there a couple of times, he and Lori—and Shane, maybe—could indeed already be there. But they're not.

  
The tall man shoots Rick a sympathetic look, as Rick sits down, heavily, gun-bag at his feet. “Damn,” he says. “You're all worn out, aren't you? Better stay for supper.”

  
“Where you want to set up, Governor?” the Hispanic man—Martinez—asks, at almost the same time, while Rick struggles to figure out the politest way to refuse. And: “Oh, over there, by the fire pit,” the tall man replies, not turning. “Make sure to check the outhouses, too, 'fore you let anybody have a pit-stop; don't want to find a biter hidin' down there, not when women and kids are likely gonna be hangin' their bare behinds out on top of it.”

  
The title gives Rick a reason to look up, so he does. “Governor?” he asks.

  
“Just something people started callin' me, probably 'cause I like to be organized. My real name's Philip, Philip Blake. You?”

  
“Rick Grimes,” Rick tells him, remembering a second later to reach up to shake hands—a gesture Philip takes firm hold of, grip both strong and warm, effortlessly drawing him back up to his feet, where Rick has to crane a bit to look him straight on.

  
“Pleasure to meet you, Officer Grimes,” he claims, sounding for all the world like he believes it, so expertly it makes Rick want to believe it too. “So, now we're here...let's see 'bout getting you settled.”

  
***

  
“I can't stay long,” Rick tells him, after dinner. The gun-bag's still where he left it—almost thought it might be gone when he got back, spirited away somewhere, for Martinez and Shumpet to check over. But Philip's obviously smarter than that.

  
“'Cause of your family? Well, I understand. But I can't say I don't wish to hell you would.”

  
“You've got a good set-up. Good men.”

  
“In the main, yeah, but they're none of 'em trained, me very much included. Hell, when the shit hit the fan, I was working in an office for a boss half my age, crunchin' numbers and changin' copy toner. We could use some expert help, Richard, and that's a fact—somebody to set the standard.”

  
Rick shrugs, uncomfortably. “Truth is,” he admits, after thinking it over, “I'm not really a cop, not anymore. Day—hell, _months_ —after the dead start rising, I'm just a man in a uniform. And power shouldn't come out of that, no more'n it should out of the barrel of gun.”

  
Philip makes a little noise, somewhere between a hum and a huff. “It's sweet you think so, but I beg to disagree. No, this is an authority-driven world, and you got something 'bout you makes people want to trust your word on things, with or without the hat. In a tight spot, you'd be of immeasurable help.”

  
“These people seem to trust _you,_ from what I see,” Rick points out, and Philip chuckles, self-deprecatingly.

  
“For now, sure. But what about when things go wrong, like you know they're gonna? It's just math. If I find I gotta start talking about things like rationing and self-restraint, that'll go down a whole lot easier if I have Officer Rick standin' by my side.”

  
“...you're probably right.”

  
“We both know I am.”

  
And: _Yeah,_ Rick finds himself thinking. _I guess we do._

  
“So who's this guy Morgan you were talking about, earlier?” Philip asks, neatly switching subjects, like he's juggling plates. “A sniper, you said? Useful skill. And he's got a boy, too...sounds like a bad situation they're in, way you described it.”

  
“It's not good,” Rick agrees. Then: “We should go back, tell him about Atlanta, so he doesn't send anybody else there. Then bring 'em here, maybe. Where it's safer.”

  
Philip smiles. “My idea exactly.”

  
***

  
Morgan and Duane are happy to see them, which makes Rick happy. Philip watches them from afar before introducing himself, enclosing Morgan's hand in his, complimenting him on how well he's taken care of himself, his son, Rick. Some of the older kids take Duane off to feed Rick's horse, while Morgan and Rick share some of that whisky Philip has in his pack.

  
Some hours on, they're poring over a map together, making plans. Rick tells Morgan how he had vague ideas about going to the CDC, but Philip talked him out of it. His pet scientist, Milton Mamet, has answers for every question Rick could think to ask: yes, it's probably a virus; no, we don't know how everybody caught it, let alone where it spread from, or whether or not there's a cure. And he does mean everybody, since both he and Philip have seen at least five people who died of natural causes, unbitten, rise again.

  
“That's crazy,” Morgan says, more in hope than disbelief. But they see it proven themselves just the next day, when a domestic incident goes south: some man simply flips out, threatening his wife and kids with a knife. Rick aims for his leg but goes too high, blowing a large enough chunk from his artery he bleeds out in minutes, and by the time the extraction team arrives he's opening his eyes again, snarling weakly.

  
“Holy Christ,” Rick said, taken aback like he hasn't been since that little girl in the trailer-park, that half-woman humping herself across the field. Sighting down his barrel at her and saying, out loud, like he really thought God might be listening: _I am so sorry this had to happen to you..._

  
And that just for himself, or 'cause no one else was likely to do it, that he could see. Unsure, in fact, that there was anyone else left to.

  
But: “Not quite,” Philip replies, a little coldly. And steps forward, quick as a snake, to drive that huge knife of his through the dead man's eye.

  
Later on— _much_ later—Rick will wonder if Philip actually arranged that little demonstration, somehow; tapped the man in question on his mental shoulder, whispered in his ear, played bad angel to his growing imbalance. It's hardly as though he's incapable of it. Impossible to tell at the time, and equally impossible to prove, after, though Rick supposes it doesn't matter much either way, not in the long run.

  
Just something he and Morgan needed to see, so Philip let them see it, to stiffen their resolve. He's good at that.

  
Back with the map, talking over strategy, relying on Morgan's expertise. “Best idea might be to find ourselves a town, smaller than Cynthiana even, and fortify the holy hell out of it,” he says. “You know, like a one-stop shop, built around a crossroads. Run vehicles across the main streets, then wall off the town center with anything comes to hand—wire, tires, sheet metal. Build 'em high, post guards with silenced weapons, pick off whatever comes looking and make a ring of corpses, so the smell keeps 'em away...”

  
Philip shakes his head, back in what Rick's starting to recognize as Governor mode. “People won't like the stench—it'll bring back memories, make 'em nervous. But say we dig pits, like catch-traps...ain't like those things look where they're going, after all.”

  
“That's smart,” Rick says. “Then when we got enough, we throw in gas. Burn 'em, and start over.”

  
“Exactly.”

  
“This place looks pretty good,” Morgan says, tapping the paper. Under his finger, Rick can just about read the letters spelling a name: _Woodbury Township, population 150._ He glances at Philip, who nods: _yeah, that's the one. Perfect._

  
“Seems like we got quorum, to me,” he says, with a grin. “Let's do it.”


	3. Chapter 3

It takes a full week to clear Woodbury out, but damn if it isn't worth it, in the end. By the final hours they've settled into a groove, him and Philip out on the streets leading the hand-to-hand, with Morgan and his sharp-shooters backing them up headshot-wise whenever things get tight. _Gotta stop wastin' bullets, these things don't grow on trees anymore,_ Philip growled at one point, earlier in the process, when people were still treating it like a George Romero free-for-all; Rick agreed. A quick vote made it official.

  
So they go in with axe and tire iron and baseball bat instead, machetes, golf clubs, Philip's huge-ass knife—a sort of haze takes over, calm yet ferocious, berserker frenzy cut with handyman fever. And long before the sun goes down on that final day, they're the only things left standing: unbowed, unbroken, almost no casualties. Him and Philip stood shoulder to bicep, not quite leaning on each other as they pant in unison, catch each other's eye, share a grin.

  
 _Whoever did this deed with me is my brother, from now on,_ Philip declaims, paraphrasing Shakespeare like a revival-tent circuit veteran, _one of our foremost citizens, forever worthy of respect. All got yourselves a reserved seat on the town council, too, assumin' you want one._

  
That last part being a gamble of the sort Rick sees him making more and more, and almost always getting away with—a supposed honor that's actually a chore, and easy to slip out of without looking bad doing it. Thus leaving the way clear for Philip, Rick, and whoever either of them picks to fill the void to eventually become the primary voting block, Woodbury's spearhead, an effective end-run on other busy people's behalf 'round the very idea of democratic process.

  
“Government mainly slows things down, Richard,” Philip replies, completely unashamed, when Rick calls him on it; “where I'm from, at least. Or have you found different, over in Cynthiana?”

  
“Not usually,” Rick has to admit.

  
“'Course not. That's why we _elect_ elected officials, in the first place—so's normal folk don't have to bother their pretty little heads 'bout the nitty-gritty, like where the fresh water comes from, or who makes sure the light turns on when you flip a switch.”

  
“You really think we can get _that_ happening again, even after all the damage?”

  
Philip shrugs. “Don't see why not. It's basic civic engineering, not rocket science.”

  
A week later, the generators kick in for the first time since Z-day—B-day? W-day?—and everybody cheers.

  
The holiday atmosphere last quite a while, maybe 'cause everyone's just so goddamn happy to finally be living inside of actual buildings again, no matter whether or not they still have to prop the doors closed and sleep in shifts. People are on Philip pretty much 24/7, but whatever requests he can't field immediately, Rick soon finds he somehow ends up fielding for him; it's like they're joined at the hip, increasingly, in everybody else's eyes. Like people simply assume that when they're talking to one, they're also talking to the other.

  
“I'm not qualified for this,” he tells Philip, at one point, to which Philip just chuckles.

  
“You think I am?” he replies. “Tell you this, though—one thing you learn working in an office is that infrastructure's what keeps it all in place. Get the machine up and going, and from then on, it kind of runs itself.”

  
Still, it's not like he turns them away, ever: Governor this, Governor that. _The human touch,_ he calls it. Or maybe he just likes to micromanage.

Essentials dispensed with, thoughts turn elsewhere. Philip takes up with Rowan, that girl who used to do P.R., but it's not like they _date,_ exactly, so eventually she figures out it isn't going anywhere permanent—probably doesn't want to be forever known as That One Used to Do the Gov, for which Rick doesn't blame her. So they kiss and say goodbye, after which she moves on to Martinez instead, then Morgan (briefly, since he isn't really ready for casual sex as yet, no more than Rick himself), then that guy who runs Electric, and so on. After a while, it's like everybody who's not already taken's probably slept with everybody else at least once, though Rick still doesn't qualify for that roster. He doesn't know if he's married anymore or what, but he's in no great hurry to find out.

  
There's a party almost every week, with drinks, eventually cold. A few girls get pregnant, and worry over it, at least 'til Mrs Heppner—the one who came _in_ already so—manages to get through having hers without any complications beyond the usual, even without hospital-grade drugs.

  
Most nights Rick either spends hanging with Morgan and Duane, or—increasingly—with Philip, going over reports, giving them. They play chess together sometimes, which is more enjoyable than Rick remembers it being. 'Course, that might well be because the last time he played it was with Shane, when they were maybe eight and nine, and he's almost certain it ended when one of 'em broke the board over the other one's head.

  
“So who taught you?” He asks, one evening, as they're setting up; white against black, with Rick black, for once.

  
Philip seems to think. “Old man made us learn,” he says, finally, “my brother and me, but I hated it, 'cause he'd never let you quit; had to play all way through, loser got the winner's chores, sucked all the damn fun out of it. Picked it up again when Penny was born and tried to teach her—boy, was she awful. Never did get the rules, entirely, but we had...” he trails off, then finishes: “It was a good distraction, especially—later on.”

  
“Carl never liked board games too much,” Rick offers, trying not to think about what Milton told him, regarding Penny Blake's last days. “Sports, that was his thing—go out, toss the ball. I took him hunting a few times.”

  
“That's good.”

  
“Bonding, right? Father stuff.”

  
“Yeah, that works pretty well, for most people. My brother liked it.”

  
“Not for you, though?”

  
“Not so much,” Philip agrees, eyes darkening.

  
He's an odd, proud man, Rick's beginning to see, under that crust of hale-fellow-well-met bullshit: self-taught, secretive, aloof. Given his druthers, Rick sometimes thinks if he could get away with it, he'd be happy not to talk to anybody at all for days at a time. But that's just not a possibility, not anymore: he's the Governor, after all. The man everybody looks up to.

  
 _Least I can do is take a bit of that off him,_ Rick thinks, and tries his best to, from then on. Which works pretty well, for a while.

  
( _He's a liar, and you're the lie,_ Michonne will tell him, one day, a year or so from now. _The face he puts on, when he feels like being sociable—people look to you first, like the two of you've trained 'em, so they don't see what-all_ he _'s doing, or planning to do. And I used to think you were in on it, but you're a good enough man, Rick, under everything. He's got you snowed too, like all the rest._ )

  
These are the good days, though—Woodbury rising, everything in place. 'Til it's not. 


	4. Chapter 4

Close like they are these days, there's no way Rick isn't going to find out about it when Philip starts that little building project of his up, turning the second room of his apartments into some sort of weird man-cave, or when he goes out on survey alone, coming back after midnight, with something he doesn't want anybody to see in the back of his truck. Not to mention how he starts spending a whole lot of time in there of an evening with the door locked, to keep out prying eyes. He and Milton whisper together a lot, even more than usual—something to do with those experiments Milton's doing, though since they've known each other a whole lot longer than him and Morgan, Rick tends to let it slide.

  
But then there's the smell. That all-too-familiar smell on Philip's clothes, his hands. Rick expects it with Milton, given his interests; the Governor, not so much.

  
It's easy to jimmy the door, first-year deputy stuff, though he learned it far earlier, from Shane. And Philip's too distracted to hear him, he guesses, as Rick suddenly recognizes the girl he's with from that photo Philip keeps on his desk, almost down to the clothes—Penny Blake, or what's left of her. Philip's dead daughter, reduced to a sad little corpse hunched over a dog-bowl piled with carrion, both hands full, and chewing.

  
Philip's brushing her hair, humming to her under his breath—some nursery rhyme, a lullabye, like Lori used to do with Carl—but when Rick shifts he looks up, freezing. His gun's on the nightstand, too far away to get to without rising, or letting go of Penny's leash; that's probably all that keeps Rick alive, those first seconds, and they both know it.

  
“You can't tell anybody,” he blurts out, at last, like some giant kid caught stealing—first completely unguarded thing Rick's ever heard him say, possibly. And Rick just nods, thinking: _Who would I tell?_

  
Got to play this just right or it all goes south, like that guy in the camp. So—

  
“Penny, right?” He stoops to her eye-line, makes himself smile. “Hi, honey...my name's Rick, nice to meet you. I work with your Daddy.”

  
For a second, as her filmy eyes turn his way, he almost thinks she's going to answer. But instead she hisses, broken teeth bared, and the Governor raps her head, firmly. “Shush, baby,” he says. “Rick's our friend. He'd never—” A breath, guttering, while he collects himself. Then: “You _wouldn't_ though, would you? I'm right about that. I mean, you just _can't._ ”

  
“I know, Philip.”

  
“She's my little girl, Richard. She's all I have.”

  
“I know, Philip. I know."

  
Because: on some level, he has to know that's not really _her_ anymore, this starved thing with its sunken cheekbones, its gnawed lips and its milky, hollow-set eyes; for Christ's sweet sake, Rick can already see a section of her scalp starting to lift off under Philip's brush-strokes, and that's with him being careful. But...he's a father too, or was, and while Lori and he'd been in trouble right up 'til the very day he was shot—he still remembers telling Shane about it, just before, only for him to spout some half-assed Men's Rights bullshit in return—he mourns her every night, without being sure she's even dead. So who knows how it might've ended between them eventually, even if he hadn't...but this much he's sure of: if it was Carl on the other end of that chain, Rick would kill the first motherfucker came near him, no matter how well he understood in his gut how the part of his son he'd loved was functionally gone already. Shoot 'em if he could, stab 'em if he couldn't; tear their fucking throat out with his teeth, if that was all he had left to fight with.

  
“Milton know she's...like this?” he asks, out loud, and Philip nods, a bit too fast, too eager to be helpful. Replying: “Oh yes, from the start—he came knocking on our door when it all hit, so when we left the house he went with us to Atlanta, the camp. And then, when the fences fell, he helped me find that place we squatted in 'til Penny's fever...finished; helped me lock her in, so she'd be safe 'til I could come back and get her, once we found someplace better. Didn't want her to hurt herself, so we made sure to take all the furniture out of her room beforehand, 'sides from some—meat—we left for her, to keep her strength up...” He trails off. “But she was okay, even after all this time; she waited for me, just like I knew she would. Always been a good girl, my Penny. Not too smart, sad to say, though that might yet change, I guess—people do change, getting older. But a dear, sweet, _good_ little girl.”

  
“Sure that's so, Philip, but...you gotta see how it's just not a good idea, keepin' her here, so close to other people. How she could be...dangerous.”

  
“Nobody else has to know, though! Nobody _ever_ has to. I take care of her, just me—she's _fine,_ look at her. Got her rigged with the chain, that jacket, and I never leave her out, I put her right back in the cupboard when she needs to sleep. Keep the key on a chain around my neck, where no one but me can get to it...”

  
“Yeah, okay, and that's all well and good, but what if _you_ get infected, handling her all the time? What'll we do then? You're _important,_ Philip, to everybody in town. Woodbury...that's all you, right? That's your baby.”

  
Philip shakes his head. “No, _she_ 's my baby, goddamnit. Only one we ever had. My wife, she died eighteen months before all this kicked off, I ever tell you that? Car accident, and it hit us both so hard—I mean, I swore I'd take care of Penny, but she was the one takin' care of _me._ And then...”  


  
Leash drawn short as Philip's shoulders start to shake, uncontrollably, Penny gives a choked groan in return; it's like the pure hurt in his voice hurts _her_ , a call-and-response circuit so painful that frankly, it kind of makes Rick want to do the same. But he presses on instead, regardless. This is the clinch, he can somehow tell—if he can get through to Philip at all, it'll be now.

  
So: “Listen, Philip,” he starts, building his argument slowly, “it's okay. You're grievin'...hell, we all are, and all in our own ways. People want strange things when they're grieving, but this ain't even so strange, you know? I'm kinda surprised more people never thought of it.”

  
Philip raises his head, then, cheeks wet—looks at Rick straight on, in frank surprise, for all the world as though he's never seen him before. “You are?” he asks.

  
“Uh huh, absolutely. It's just...human, to want to keep the ones we've lost as close as we possibly can. But the important part is, you're a good person, Philip, no matter what. You have to believe that.”

  
“I am?”

  
“Hell yeah, you are! You saved us, didn't you? Saved me, by keepin' me out of Atlanta; went back for Morgan. Got us here. Seventy people and change, more almost every week, by helping us save ourselves.”

  
“That's right, yeah, I did; I am. That _is_ right. Isn't it?”

  
“Sure it is. Which is why you gotta just keep telling yourself how any one of us might've done the same as you—I know I would've. Nobody's ever gonna fault you for that.”

  
“They won't?”

  
“Nope. Not when I explain how it was to them...how it is.”

  
Philip looks down at his daughter, worrying now at the straitjacket's straps with her teeth, and sighs, gustily.

  
“Milton thinks they can come back, maybe,” he explains, at last. “That somewhere, way deep inside, there's still something left to be woken, you only try hard enough. Memories. Find a way to start those up, and they'd be—them again, eventually.”

  
 _Same as before, only stinkier,_ Rick thinks, but doesn't say.

  
“That's just a fairytale he tells himself so's he can keep on getting up in the morning, though,” he points out, gently. “We both know that, right? It's wrong.”

  
“Doesn't have to be,” Philip maintains, hollowly. But now it's Rick's turn to shake his head.

  
“I'd say she's suffered enough,” he says, carefully, “but the thing is, she can't really suffer. Not like we can. So, when you think about it, the only one _suffering_ here...is _you_ , Philip.”

  
Little girl-shaped hole, skin-wrapped, intent on forward motion and food. Cut her, she doesn't bleed; wrong her, she doesn't hate. Love her, it's like throwing it down some open maw. She can't give anything back, aside from infection.

  
“Which is why you gotta give it up, let go. Let _her_ go. 'Cause you both deserve so much better.”

  
“I failed her,” Philip says, head still down and drooping further, like he's telling some penitential rosary. To which Rick replies, fast as he can: “No, no, I don't think you did. Kept on lovin' her, didn't you? Just like you love your wife, still. Just like you always will. But...you sure don't need her like _this,_ for that.”

  
Philip sits there a long moment more, heavy as some fallen tree. Gives this further weary, creaking sigh that lasts twice as long as the first and covers both eyes with one hand, the other tight on the leash.

  
“You do it, then,” he says, at last. “If it means that much to you.”

  
“Not my place,” Rick replies, even quicker. “She's your kid, Philip, like you said—your choice, what you do, or don't. And besides...”

  
( _...besides which, I don't want you hating me afterwards, just 'cause I did what you thought you couldn't._ )

  
Philip nods, then, and gets up—slowly, by degrees. He has snot running down his face, eyes tear-burnt, mouth compressed to one mean little line, like he's forgotten how to smile entirely; looks verge-of-sick, like he might have to feel his way around, and he opens his other hand, finally letting the leash go slack. Rick resists the urge to jump back out of range, but Penny doesn't seem to notice; she's got her face sunk deep in the bowl again, licking for the last of the juice.

  
 _God,_ Rick can't stop himself from thinking, _if that_ was _Carl...I think I'd kill myself before I did him, just to let him eat my corpse. Thus taking the whole damn town down with me, probably._

  
He can only hope—pray, even—that no matter how upset he may be right now, practical, well-organized, long-term planner supreme Philip Blake does eventually turn out to be stronger than he is, on that particular point.

  
Above her, her father gives a long, last sniff...then grabs a handful of t-shirt to briskly scrub his face clean with, as he reaches for his knife.

  
“It's all right, baby,” he says, voice already sealing up the middle, dipping right back on down to normal. “No need to fret. Just c'mon over here, one more time, and let Daddy make it better.”

  
***

  
When it's done with, Rick gives Penny's frail little shell over to Milton, wrapped up in the cartoon-patterned sheets Philip lined her cupboard “bed” with. When he sees her face the man's eyes get soft, even hidden beneath his glasses' blank little lenses, but overall, he seems less surprised than grateful.

  
“If anybody could get him to, I hoped it might be you,” he says, laying her down on an empty gurney.

  
And: “Jesus, Milton,” Rick replies, somewhat appalled. “So let me get this straight—you knew it was crazy, _knew_ what it was doing to him, but you just went along with it, anyhow?”

  
Milton just glances back up at him, silent a long minute, face screwed up. Like he doesn't get the question in such an elemental way, he finds it all but impossible to process.

  
“I can't _stop_ the Governor from doing anything, Rick,” he answers, finally. “No one could.”

  
 _No one but me, apparently,_ Rick thinks, briefly wondering why. But there's no easy answer to that one without asking the man himself's opinion, and he's sure not about to do _that._

  
 _Long goddamn day,_ he thinks, exhaustion creeping up on him all over; what he really wants is to turn for home, leaving Philip to his own devices. But if the Governor eats a bullet on his watch, what the hell is he going to tell everybody?

  
When he gets back to Philip's, however, he finds him pouring the second of two tall glasses of whisky with that secret inner room's door safely locked once more and the key draped over his family portrait, hanging down between Penny's face and his like a shadow. “Have a drink with me, Richard,” he orders, then throws back most of the first before filling it again, like a dare.

  
It's the very least he can do, Rick feels in his heart, and Christ knows that's little enough, given. So he sits down, sighing, and does.

  
***

  
They've been drinking together so long, sunk in mutual silence, that Rick's tongue's gone a little numb before Philip finally turns and starts kissing him, all of a sudden. Just does it, no questions asked, swift as a bite—thoroughly and exploratorily, teeth and lips combined for a sting of woozy lust, one hot, wet breath passed back and forth between them like a shotgunned toke. And then Rick's up in his lap somehow, splay-straddled, riding those long legs like they're his horse's back; he's lost all track of his body's limits, both of them merged into a general tangle of roaming hands and squirming limbs, both above and below.

  
This started out as sympathy, and now—not like it's gone _wrong,_ so much, as totally unexpected. He isn't queer, that he knows of; Philip either, going by the evidence. Or maybe old-style labels just don't matter all too much, now the world's flipped over and what used to be literally buried beneath's all dumped out back on top and roaming 'round with arms outstretched, ready to claw and chomp...

  
But: “Hey,” Rick says, drawing back just a bit, or far as Philip's embrace will allow for—catches a glimpse of himself in the vanity mirror as he does, color high and hair mussed, uncomfortably perched on top of something hard yet giving which he can only assume originates from inside the Governor's pants. “Hold up, now. Maybe we need to think about this, least a little bit.”

  
“Don't wanna,” Philip says, into Rick's throat.

  
“No, guess not; me either, come to think. Which means—we _really_ probably should.”

  
Hearing the shameful way Rick's voice breaks at the end of that sentence, Philip finally raises his head to shoot him a look that's amused but predatory, same one he uses when letting some rube in council rabbit 'til his argument starts to cross back over on itself before saying just the exact right thing to pop it, like a balloon.

  
“Oh, Richard,” he says, with what almost sounds like affection. “For a full-grown man, you got some highly elementary ideas about sex.” And goes right on back to what he's already doing, as though that's any sort of answer, before Rick can even try to object further.

  
 _Hell,_ Rick thinks, head still reeling. _Maybe he's right, at that. What's it matter? Rapture came, and nobody got saved; hell's empty, and the devil never showed up to work. All the Good Book talk on earth don't mean a fart in a high wind when you've got a biter on your back, so I might as well take it wherever and whenever, from whoever..._

  
The next morning, Rick has a hangover roughly half the size of Planet Earth plus no clear memory of how he got back to his own bed, and his piss smells like bourbon. There's a hickey on one collarbone, but a fresh shirt'll hide that without much effort, and it certainly doesn't _feel_ like they went much further than mutual hand-jobs, at the most. So he takes a long shower, hot then cold, and for the rest of the day he and Philip barely talk to each other, except to work out plays for the next supply run and discuss city planning issues.

  
When curfew falls and the office empties out, however, Philip pulls the blind and pushes Rick back up against the wall, one hand shoved up his shirt, the other popping his fly. Rick thinks about stopping him, but doesn't. They kiss 'til their lips are sore, stubble-burnt and throbbing, 'til they run out of breath, then sink to the floor and take a second to heave deep, building up stamina, before doing it some more.

  
“You want this, right?” Philip murmurs, in Rick's ear. “Tell me if you don't, or I'm just gonna keep goin'.”

  
“Think so, yeah. You?”

  
That same laugh again, flesh-muffled, echoing through Rick's chest. “Oh, I think 'need''s more the right word, I had to pick just one.”

  
 _We_ should _stop, though,_ Rick thinks, one final time, feeling the same thing down deep inside, that fierce, hot pull which tugs from sternum to crotch: not want but need, and now, now, now. Which is why he already knows damn well that they won't.


	5. Chapter 5

What with one thing and another, it takes Rick a good week or so to figure out that by starting up this...whatever it is they have, with each other, Philip's basically managed to work it so they skip over the whole explaining-Penny-to-everybody part entirely. By then, of course, it's far too late for do-overs; she's long gone, anatomized by Milton maybe, or burnt up in one of the catch-pits, with Philip sailing forward in fine style: back to “normal,” with a vengeance. He works hard, plays even harder, and Rick's there right along with him every step of the way, both during office hours, and after.

  
“It's 'cause you're the only real friend I have, Richard,” he says, one time—so quiet that for a second there Rick almost thinks he dreamed it, dozing in the man's long arms, just before the night-shift neighbourhood watch alarm goes off. And while Rick allows there are probably worse reasons by far to get into bed with someone, he also has to wonder—might this be a way of taking back control, after Rick's seen him so terribly vulnerable? Recompense exacted, mutually enjoyable though it might be in the moment, for Philip always having to remember how he once lowered himself to essentially do Rick's bidding?

  
“Your opinion's the only one I care about, 'cept for my own,” he tells Rick after they've argued all through council, later on. “I value your input.”

  
Rick snorts. “Yeah, sure—you'll listen, smile the whole time, all that. Then turn around and do the exact thing I said not to, every time.”

  
“When have I ever ignored your advice?”

  
“I can think of more than a few instances, and that's just today.”

  
“Hmm, and you don't like _that,_ do you?” Philip grins. “Why, Richard Grimes, for shame; didn't know you were such a _complicated_ man, the night I took up with ya.” Then adds, gathering him in: “But that's okay. As you've probably figured out already, I'm a bit that way myself.”

  
So Milton twigs pretty fast and gets a hang-dog look for a few days, 'til Philip joshes him out of it. Given how godawful little of a crap the man seems to give who happens to find out about this particular bit of his business, however—inside the inner circle, at least—Rick's somewhat surprised how long it takes other people to even notice what's happening. He can still remember meeting Morgan for breakfast a morning or so after that first time, only to have him hike his brows in greeting, grinning wide. “What?” he asked, as Morgan just chuckled.

  
“You sly dog,” he said. “C'mon now, who was it? That gal with the bow, says her Daddy wanted to coach her for the Olympics?”

  
Rick shook his head, poured himself a slug of coffee from the proffered thermos. Saying, as he did: “Jesus, Morgan—too early by far, for that kind'a shit. Ain't you got something _useful_ to concentrate on?”

  
A shrug. “Nothin' pressing. Nah, but wait, don't tell me; you know I like mysteries, and the library's fresh out.”

  
And so it goes, 'til one day they're out on survey, just driving along, when Morgan suddenly turns to him, eyes wide. “Holy shit,” he says, like he's just connected the dots. “The goddamn _Governor_?”

  
“Don't know what you—”

  
“Hell you _don't,_ white boy. Just what the fuck were you thinking?”

  
Rick stays silent a minute, hands on the wheel, trying his level best to figure that out. “...not much above the belt, I guess,” is all he replies, finally.

  
“Ohhh, Christ Almighty.”

“Yeah, you're right about that.” And now it's Morgan's turn to ponder, 'til he what eventually comes up with is—

“Listen, whatever makes you happy, I s'pose; end of the world, and such. But I'd keep it on the down-low awhile, 'til some of these other folks get the Bible out of their systems.”

  
Rick nods, thinking of those informal yet passionate church services that one family—the Carters, three generations' worth of hard-core Baptists, the rest of their time evenly split between food services and lawn maintenance—host twice a week, in what used to be the Woodbury War Memorial Museum. They're the sort tend to take little things like dead people walking the earth as proof that Jesus is due to be dropping by any minute now, so they consider it their civic duty to make sure everyone's doing their best to look busy, in the meantime.

  
“Thanks, buddy,” he says, and Morgan nods as well, sighing.

  
“Think about your wife much, still?” he asks, after a pause.

  
“Lori? Every day.” Rick waits a second before asking, gently: “You?”

  
Morgan takes another minute, which stretches. “Not as much as I used to,” he says, eventually. “Not since...”

  
( _...I killed her again, anyhow,_ is what Rick knows he means.)

  
They ride the rest of the way in silence, as Morgan slings his rifle off and starts checking it, cleaning what he can, with extra care lavished on the scope.

  
***

  
The Dixon brothers turn up in November, hunting the woods out by Loman Station: Merle and Daryl, both redneck meth-head types, or would be, there was still anywhere left to get meth from. They're the kind of old boys Rick would've busted on the regular back in Cynthiana, but Philip takes an interest, so he steps back and waits to see exactly how much rope they'll pull out for themselves, before he's forced to interfere. Soon enough, he figures out how it's Merle that's the real asshole—Daryl's both shyer and smarter than he looks, a genius with a bow who's content to watch while Merle talks himself into trouble, though sadly quick to throw down trying to get him out of it. While Merle, on the other hand, has that rat-killin' dog air to him, an instinct for submission and potential crazy loyalty to authority that Philip prizes in all the men he gathered to him first, back in Atlanta—Martinez, Shumpert, etcetera.

  
Problem is what Merle really wants, increasingly, is more of Philip's attention than the Governor's truly willing to part with, on a regular basis. And he _really_ doesn't like to share. 

  
“You 'n' the Gov're pretty damn tight, ain't ya, Officer Friendly?” he calls out one evening, just as Rick's heading for neighborhood watch evening shift assembly. And maybe it's just 'cause Philip's once again blown off some stupid idea of his after Rick pointed out how it sucked, but the sneer in his voice is just warning enough to make Rick slow down, if not actually stop, even as he simultaneously becomes aware of Daryl loitering nearby, trying not to look like he's listening in.

  
“What exactly is it you want, Merle?” Rick asks.

  
“Oh, just a bit of a jaw 'bout all those late nights you and him spend whisperin' to each other, with not a pretty girl in sight. Now, why would that be, you think?”

  
“Lots of people get the Governor's time, they just ask for it,” Rick points out. “Hell, you probably could too, you only felt like volunteering for anything besides the chow line.”

  
“Well, maybe I just might, one day. But given that cannon you pack, I sure wouldn't want to make you jealous.”

  
And this is where Rick really does halt, turning to look at Merle directly, in frank disbelief. “What're you implying?” he demands, and Merle just laughs, like if Rick's too dumb to figure it out for himself, it's not like he's under any great obligation to explain. Keeps on laughing, in fact, until Rick shakes his head and walks on, determined to ignore him; long and loud as any drunken frat boy, any Serengeti hyena, any sugar-hopped preschool kid who's just found out about the many wonderful social uses of the phrase: _I know you are, but what am I?_

  
Philip laughs too when Rick tells him, way he does at most things he doesn't feel like dealing with, 'cause he thinks he can talk his way out of anything, and why not? As experience has taught him all too well, he usually can. Rick, however, doesn't think it's quite as funny—not least because even at the best times, Merle's never struck him as being all that big on _talk._

  
Philip scoffs. “I think you're exaggerating the gravity of the situation, somewhat.”

  
“All I'm trying to say is, maybe we should dial it back a little, considering,” Rick replies.

  
“Don't wanna damage my reputation, that it?”

  
“Something like that, yeah.”

  
“Well, isn't that _nice._ ”

  
Fact is, though, Philip isn't fond of snap decisions, unless they're ones _he_ comes up with. So he draws himself up full height and strikes a pose, staring down on Rick like he's Carl, and just pissed the bed—which Rick personally finds pretty damn rich, coming from a guy he's seen naked.

  
“You want to pretend none of—this—ever happened just 'cause some inbred hick with a crush thinks he's finally learned to tell shit from shinola, you go on ahead,” Philip says, coldly. “Woodbury's chock-full of women find us both attractive, so there's no reason anybody needs to go wanting. But just do me the courtesy of admitting you've always had your own reasons for wantin' out, Richard, at the very least—hypocrisy's a damn ugly thing, 'specially from an honest man. It doesn't become you.”

  
He stalks off before Rick can quite gather a suitable response, moving at enough of a clip that by the time he finally has, the only thing he could stop him with long enough to make him listen would probably be a bullet. Bound for Milton's lab, maybe, where he can hold forth on Rick's ingratitude 'til he finally gets himself calm enough to come back and apologize; Philip can rant and rave all he wants down there with those creepy biter-heads in tanks for an audience, and Milton'll never interrupt. And all the while knowing damn well that no matter his tantrums, if something happens to come up in his absence needs an immediate response, he can always rely on good old Rick to handle it.

  
 _Don't know what I'm doing anymore, if I ever did,_ Rick finds himself thinking, amazed. _It's like one bad idea piled on top of another, enough to go up maybe ten miles, by now. Just don't see how it can go wronger still, barring another apocalypse._

  
But: _Never say never,_ a part of him whispers, even then. Because when bad becomes normal, “worse” is _always_ an option.


	6. Chapter 6

After all this drama, the way the Governor ends up deciding to deal with Merle Dixon is by approving an idea Miton's had for ages, but never quite managed to get voted through council (thus far). Predictably, it's one that Rick's always considered borderline insane, but Philip doesn't care all too much about that—he's making a point here, as well as doing his very own version of the time-honored _Godfather_ move: keeping his enemies close, ostensibly by turning them _into_ friends.

  
“What do you care?” he has the unbelievable stones to demand, when Rick objects. “You know it'll be good for morale, 'specially now we're so well-defended that if we want to keep people sharp, we essentially gotta go looking for fights.”

  
“Oh yeah, that's right; put it all on me, for keepin' people safe enough to stupidly start _feeling_ safe.”

  
“Safe leads to slack, Richard, you've said it yourself. Hard to recall we're in danger 24/7 yet, when every time you walk through the square you hear kids chanting 'eenie meanie miney moe, catch a biter by the toe.'”

  
“Just wondering how we got from there to rigged zombie gladiator fights, is all.”

  
“Specifically? 'Cause Milton wants to test their reflexes under combat conditions and Merle needs somethin' to kill, not to mention keep his mind off shit he _really_ don't need to be thinking 'bout, he wants to stay upright.”

  
Rick sighs. “You and me, for example.”

  
“For example, yes.”

  
They're coming down the side-street out back of Philip's apartments, talking low and moving fast enough Rick has to trot a bit to keep up, while Philip just smiles and waves at everyone they pass like he's running for re-election in an office he was essentially acclaimed to. Thus singled out, Woodbury's citizens inevitably smile back, wave back; there's more than a bit of fluttering goes on, and not just amongst the female contingent. Philip sucks it up like sunshine, getting even taller.

  
“Frankly, I'd've thought you'd be happier,” Philip remarks, slyly, as they halt near the crosswalk. “Merle told me you said he should volunteer for something, so here you go: two birds, one stone, boom. Got a certain subtle elegance to it, don't you think?”

  
“Not exactly.”

  
“Not to mention it frees you up to worry about...other things.”

  
“I'd be worryin' about those anyhow,” Rick replies, refusing to be jollied. Which makes Philip grin wider still, to his slightly pointed eye-teeth.

  
“Aw, cheer up, Richard,” he orders, turning away, conversation officially finished. “Hell, it's this or football, and we're pretty goddamn short on players. Just remember, nobody likes a spoil-sport.”

  
 _Consider it a present,_ that's the clear implication, as though Rick's own wants and needs have ever had much influence on Philip's decisions, aside from one particular time...or twice, maybe. If you even want to count him not spitting the Governor's tongue out of his mouth as a rational choice instead of a stupid, drunken mistake, in hindsight.

  
He doesn't put himself out to know who Philip's tapping these days, 'sides from hoping to hell it isn't Milton, or (God forbid) Merle. Amusingly, however, Rick _has_ gone out a couple of times with Haley since the break-up, that pretty little prospective Olympian Morgan kept trying to push him towards—and here she is now, spotting him from across the street, beckoning him over.

  
“Hey, chief,” she greets him, brightly. “See Duane anywhere? We were s'posed to meet for target practice this morning, up at the South Wall.”

  
“Yeah? What's that in aid of?”

  
“He wants to come on survey, so we're upping his certification, and it's working out well—maybe two more biter cull sessions away from quota, as of last week. Could really use another hand, since that whole thing with Joe G.”

  
“Morgan know about this?”

  
“'Course he does! Duane's underage, so we had to get his permission, just like the regs say. I mean, not as though we'd let him do anything more than scout, anyways, the first few times.”

  
Rick nods. “Okay, sure—you know I have to ask, right?”

  
“Uh huh. That's why you're the boss.” Shyly: “You going to the fight, later on?”

  
 _Wasn't planning on it,_ is the first thing comes to mind. But she's giving him those big eyes, making him remember how nice she feels pressed up against him from the lips on down, smaller than him, and softer. Rounded in ways Philip'll never be—Lori either, if she's still alive.

  
(He does think of her still, but not every day, and feels bad about that. Not like Carl, who's first in his thoughts morning and night, as well as whenever he looks at Duane; Duane and Morgan, trading smiles, bumping fists. Best good deed he's done so far is that first one, he sometimes thinks, when he talked Philip into rescuing the two of them—it's given him more unalloyed second-hand pleasure than almost anything else, thus far. Though some people might say at least half of Woodbury's infrastructure's more his than the Governor's, the Governor himself amongst them...)

  
But: back to Haley, waiting on an answer, studying his face as he stands there woolgathering, maybe wondering if she's said something wrong; Rick conjures up a smile himself to tell her no. “Wouldn't miss it,” he lies, reaching out to squeeze her hand, and watches her bloom again, a watered flower.

  
 _She's so young,_ he thinks, a trifle sadly. _Wants what she wants, same's we all do, and what with everything she's gone through, who am I to deny her?_ It's such a surprisingly little thing in the end, long as they use protection. And it's not like he wouldn't be the biggest fool in the world to claim he doesn't get anything out of it either, after all...

  
 _Hypocrisy's a damn ugly thing, Richard,_ Philip's voice murmurs, in his mental ear. But he shrugs it away, and keeps on walking.

  
***

  
“Yeah, I signed off on it,” Morgan admits, as they sit their usual North Wall shift that afternoon, right above the gate. “Couldn't not and keep my World's Best Dad mug, the way Duane worked at me. But I'm not so sure it's all his idea, in the final analysis, and that's got me thinkin'.”

  
“What do you mean?”

  
“I _mean,_ I think he was talked into it—by the Governor, you really gotta know. Sorry to say it, but from what-all I can see, it's just true.”

  
Rick frowns. “Why would Philip—”

  
“'Cause he _likes_ to talk people into things, Rick, 'specially stuff they already know ain't good for 'em. Would've thought you'd've figured that out already, considering...” he trails off, then: “Well, anyways. I've said my piece.”

  
 _Not hardly,_ Rick wants to snap back, But instead, he makes himself stop and ponder the idea through, much as he finds he doesn't want to—and eventually, weighing up the evidence, he's forced to admit that Morgan's probably right: Philip does take pride in his oratory, his weird gift of the gab, to the extent sometimes Rick often thinks he truly does believe if he only says a thing long enough, loud enough—and gets enough people to agree with him, when he does—he can actually convince himself it's true.

  
“I'm sure he doesn't mean Duane any harm,” he says, finally, wincing at how weak that sounds. To which Morgan replies, shrugging: “Yeah, and God knows I'd like to believe it. But wishin' on something doesn't always make it so, does it?”

  
 _Almost never,_ Ricks knows; Morgan too, he suspects. Luckily, however, it's right at that moment that something changes the subject for hours to come—something gut-ache familiar yet truly unprecedented, at least by the standards of how they've lived the last year and half.

  
“Holy Christ,” Morgan blurts, too shock to even look at Rick, though his scope jerks up automatically. “That _can't_ be—I mean, is that—?”

  
“A chopper?” Rick replies, already on his feet. “Oh yes it damn well is.”

  
There's a moment of wild joy as the—army? Sure enough looks like, even at this angle—helicopter passes overhead, blades racketting, so fierce it makes them want to dance and jump, throwing their hands in the air like fools: _here, over HERE! C'mon!_ But that's before they see the way it's listing, trailing smoke, that one kid on the gunner's perch holding on for dear life and still swinging wide, like he's just about to fall.

  
Then it strikes up, far too sharp, before dipping back down into what Rick can already tell is a death-plunge—spirals, plummeting like a stone, to hit somewhere just past the southwest tree-line. Rick curses, hears it echoed, then glances to see Philip down by the left-hand tire-stack, Merle at one elbow, Milton at the other. “God damn!” he says, eyes flashing. “You see where it went?”

  
“Think so, yeah.”

  
“Well, what're you still here for, then? Take the truck, see if there's survivors, something to salvage—this's the first I've seen one of those since _Atlanta,_ Richard, and that's—oh, _man._ ” He breaks off, brain obviously working faster than his tongue for once, before adding at last: “You do get what I'm saying, right? This could...this could change everything.”

  
“I get you.” Rick reaches for his walkie, thumbs the button. “Team Rick? Asses up, we're out of here in ten. Get Doc Stevens, and tell her to pack like we're bringin' someone home.”

  
“I wanna go,” Merle says, and Philip nods, impatiently, waving away any objections Rick might have before he can lodge 'em. Meanwhile, Merle's already up the wall in two shakes, grabbing for the binoculars. Says to Rick, at the same time: “Looks like we're workin' together for once, Officer Friendly. Now, ain't that a hoot?"

  
“Sure is,” Rick replies, through his teeth.

  
***

  
As it turns out, they actually come back with three new guests, Merle notwithstanding. One—the only soldier left unchanged—is a thickset man whose tags say _Welles, Lt._ , while the other two they find hiding up the hill a ways, watching them work from the cover of some nearby bushes...'til the wind changes, at least, and those two jawless, armless biters one of 'em's apparently been leading around on chains like the world's ugliest pair of guard dogs start to stink enough to attract attention. Their keeper, a fierce young black woman sporting dreads, armed with an honest-to-goodness samurai sword, is some piece of work: whips the heads off her pets the minute she sees Rick coming and turns to run, grabbing her partner's arm, just as Merle and Daryl (who jumped on the truck's running board the minute he realized Merle was headed out of town) materialize behind them.

  
“Ma'am, I'm gonna have to ask you to put down the sword,” Rick says, hands spread in what he hopes seems like an unthreatening way. But that's undone entirely when Merle's gaze falls on the other woman—tall, blonde, probably a hell of a lot prettier when she isn't coughing her guts out with some kind of walking pneumonia—only to widen like he's just seen a ghost, then give way to a leer so slimy it even seems to turn Daryl's stomach.

  
And: “Well well well,” he crows. “Damn if it ain't blondie herself, in the fine, fair flesh. How's that stuck-up sister of yours, anyhow?”

  
The woman clears her throat, rackingly, and spits the result at Merle's feet. “ _Dead,_ you redneck asshole,” she manages, at last, before keeling over in a faint at Samurai Girl's feet.

  
“The sword, ma'am,” Rick repeats, 'til the woman snarls, and sets it down; Martinez takes it, flicking biter-blood from its blade admiringly before sliding it back into its sheath, while Nguyen runs back for Doc Stevens. Daryl looks at Merle, meanwhile, who rolls his eyes, complaining: “ _What,_ for Chrissake? _I_ didn't do it.”

  
“You know this lady?” Rick asks.

  
Daryl gives one curt nod. “Her name's Andrea, sister's called Amy...was, I guess. We were at campground with 'em back near Atlanta, doin' okay, when _this_ moron here decided it was a smarter move to try jackin' their shit while most of the heavy hitters were off on a supply run, and got us tossed out on our asses. Guy in charge was from back this-a-way, some Sheriff's Deputy with a bad attitude; he came home early, caught us in the act. Barely got out with _our_ stuff, even after his woman talked him down.”

  
Merle huffs, disgusted. “Yeah, go on and tell him everything, ya little snitch! That guy was all hat an' no cattle—would've kicked his ass good, badge or not, he hadn't had the drop on us.”

  
 _You go on and tell yourself that,_ Rick thinks, turning away. “This one's with me,” he tells Martinez, who tries to take the black woman's arm only for her to give him a look like she wants to set him on fire with her mind, shake him off and stalk forward, head high. “Doc can bring the other one in the ambulance, along with Lieutenant Welles. Get 'em both the med centre, ASAP.” To her: “ _You_ have a name, ma'am?”

  
“Michonne,” she snaps, and marches right on past Rick towards the vehicles, not looking back.


	7. Chapter 7

Doesn't help that Michonne meets the Governor for the first time at the fights that night, but Rick thinks she probably wouldn't've taken to him anyways; he's in full charm mode, but she appears to be impervious. He gives her the time-honored Woodbury sell, and she just stands there waiting, cutting him the most blatant side-eye Rick's seen since before he steered his horse onto the road to Atlanta. And Christ knows Philip's not dumb, so before long, he simply sighs, and says—

  
“Well, you don't have to trust _me_ , miss, you don't feel the urge to—trust Rick here, instead. Most people do. He's a trustworthy guy.”

  
“Seems to be,” Michonne allows, which Philip takes as a species of victory, strolling away, back into the laughing, cheering, whooping crowd. But: _'Cept for the fact he's standin' next to_ you, Rick can almost hear her add, inside her mind.

  
She's right to be suspicious, he knows, though he can't say that out loud. Instead, they just stand there watching a few long moments more—the pitiful spectacle of it, biters with their teeth pulled stumbling in a circle, paying out their chains 'til they trip over their own feet and fall on Merle's blade (is that Philip's own knife he's wielding, down there?) while that white trash jackass acts like he's winning a damn MMA title, or something.

  
“This your idea of fun too?” she asks, eventually. And: “Hell, no,” Rick hears himself reply, before he can remind himself not to.

  
Michonne looks at him full-on, then—a good, long stare, hard but assessing, like he's suddenly come into focus. “What you say your name was again, 'Officer Friendly'?”

  
“Rick, ma'am. Rick Grimes.”

  
“Don't call me ma'am, I'm not your mama. Grimes, though...that sounds familiar.”

  
“Oh yeah?”

  
“Yeah. Was this woman Andrea used to talk about sometimes, when the fever got bad; part of the group she was with, back at that burnt-out farm I found her near, and I don't think they got along.” She frowns even more than usual, thinking. “She had a boy with her, I know that much.”

  
Rick feels his heart lurch. “Lori, was that her name?”

  
“Don't recall, though it might've been—but the kid was Carl. And there was some guy named Shane who ran everything, used to be a Sheriff's Deputy in some podunk town...”

  
( _All hat an' no cattle,_ Merle sneers, in Rick's memory. After which comes Daryl, almost on the same mental “breath,” chiming in: _Barely got out, even after his woman talked him down—_ )

  
“Him and Carl's mom,” Rick manages, clearing his throat. “Were they, um...together?”

  
“Think so, yeah. Why?”

  
And: he's already on his feet, starting to move, fight-pit completely forgotten; breath burning, throat raw, maybe a beat or so away from full-blown cardiac crisis. Hasn't felt like this since...well, maybe back when he was a kid, the year he got his full growth, though it's not like he ever hit six foot four, unlike some people he could mention. When his center of gravity shifted, and everything he'd known up 'til then was sent reeling.

Elbowing people aside and not even apologizing, like he usually would; sweat in his hair, slicking his back and the palms of both hands, rendering them too slippery to hold a gun. Calling back over his shoulder to Michonne, as he goes—

  
“I need to talk to that friend of yours, that Andrea, pneumonia or no pneumonia. _Right goddamn now._ ”

  
***

  
Hours later, Rick finds Philip down in Milton's lab, just like he thought he would—relaxing in front of the tanks, leant back in an old barcalounger with a whisky in one hand and some sort of report in the other, a stapled-together mess of paper he flips shut, the minute he realizes he's not alone. “Richard,” he says, coolly. “What is it brings you my way, exactly? And who's lookin' after miss Michonne, while you're here?”

  
“She's in the med centre, drinking coffee, last I saw; Doc Stevens said it was okay for her to watch over that friend of hers, so I sent Morgan in to keep her company. But listen, Philip—”

  
“See you so rarely, these days, I just had to ask,” the Governor says, eyes still on those floating, flesh-wrapped skulls, like he's studying them for clues: ten the last time Rick was down here, but now there's more—Michonne's pets, for example, way over on the end, exposed single mandibles vaguely fluttering, trying to click the jaws they no longer have together. And a new one, too, right on top, angel-star to the grossest Christmas tree imaginable. It's fresh enough there's still blood in the water, rendering the red-tinted face inside impossible to place, even were Rick interested enough to try...

  
But: “I miss our talks,” Philip continues, bad imitation of “sadly,” taking another swig. While Rick just shakes his head, impatient, blurting out: “Hell with _that,_ I said listen! My wife, my son—”

  
“What about 'em?”

  
“They might still be alive. Says she was travelling with them, just a few months back..."

  
“Who, Michonne? I'd take whatever she says with a slight grain of salt, that one.”

  
“No, not _her,_ I mean the sick lady—Andrea, that's her name.” Rick pauses just long enough to take a breath, for what feels like the first time in ages, at which point it occurs to him: “'Sides which, just 'cause she didn't take to you, that doesn't make Michonne's info automatically untrustworthy.”

  
“True enough,” Philip agrees. “Well—that's amazing, Rick, if so. That's...just great. I mean it.”

  
“Thank you.”

  
“Yeah, I really do.” Another slug. “Gotta follow up on that, definitely.”

  
“I will, for sure—asked Morgan to walkie me, the minute she wakes up again. So how'd things go with Welles, anyhow?”

  
“The Lieutenant? _Very_ helpful. All but drew us a map to where the rest of his squad're camped out, right on the edge of the red zone. Gonna take a team up there, soon as the sun rises.”

  
“You need me to come along?”

  
“No, I don't think that's necessary. Stay here, keep an eye on Michonne, make sure she don't just cut and run once she figures out where that pig-sticker of hers got put. Oh, and talk to Merle for me, will you? He's got somethin' he wants to propose, but I just don't have the time.”

  
 _Not gonna want to talk to_ me _about it, if he does,_ Rick thinks. But he can't give it much attention, because his mind's already skipping right on back to that brief, scattered conversation he had with Andrea, Michonne squeezing her hand and glaring at him: yes, she does know a Lori Grimes, her boy Carl and their protector, Shane Walsh. Long brown hair, flat as a board and kind of grim 'round the mouth, 'specially when she doesn't get her way. Shane has a temper on him, but she keeps him even—mostly.

  
 _Heard Glenn and the farmer's daughter were running into town for drugs after Carl got shot, and asked 'em to get her a pregnancy test. Asked Glenn to get her Morning After pills at the same time, but don't tell Shane._

  
_Wait, hold up—Carl was SHOT?_

  
_Well yeah, but he's okay, he's good. Farmer's a doc...a vet, actually, but he pulled it off. Tough old bastard. Uhhhh, I gotta sleep..._

  
_Just one more thing 'fore you do, Andrea, please. Is Lori...did she do it, or what? She pregnant still?_

  
_Last time I saw her, yeah. Like—three months, maybe four. Must be ready to drop, by now._

  
The very idea of Lori, with her narrow hips and her caesarian scar, getting ready to give birth in some...God knows where, really: some dirty hole, some cave in the forest out where the biters migrate in pods, like goddamn locusts. It makes him want to run wild, more so by far than the idea she'd take up with Shane, hard though _that_ is to stomach; they've all known each other so long, after all, tied tight as him and Shane've been since childhood on, and he knows Shane likes her that way, though he'd never've done anything about it—not 'til he was pretty much sure Rick was dead, that is.

  
So there's shock, sure, but no blame. Three months in a coma, then the world comes to an end, like some landslide out of hell. How could they possibly think anything else, either of them?

  
Still: she lost a lot of blood, last time. Barely got through it, even with hospital care. She could...

  
No, no, no. No goddamn way. Not now Rick knows she really is out there, somewhere. He'll move heaven and earth to make sure she pulls through, if he has to.

  
“We have to go get them,” he says, out loud, not even aware of it; sees Philip shoot him a look under lowered lashes, reading him head to toe, just like that first day they met. Calculating just how far he has to go, maybe, to make sure Rick doesn't do anything too foolish.

  
And: “'Course we do,” Philip promises him, without a second's hesitation. “We _will._ You got my solemn word.” 

  
“Thank you, Philip.”

  
“Anything for you, Richard,” the Governor repeats, in exactly the same tone, reasonable as God. “You know that.”

  
And even as he does, his eyes slide right on back to that tank on top.


	8. Chapter 8

It takes Andrea far longer to recuperate than Michonne probably hoped it would, but in a way, that's good; it keeps her in town, keeps her (reasonably) polite. Rick gives her back her sword once she agrees not to wear it 24/7, which helps—probably keeps it under her bed, or something. When Philip objects, Rick just says: “What'd you rather have, her sort of on our side while it suits her, or actively working against us? 'Cause from what I've seen, we _really_ don't want that second one.”

  
Philip huffs. “Fine, then—just keep her on a leash, will ya? She scares people.”

  
 _Like you do with Merle?_ Rick wonders, nodding. Because that's definitely a thing now, more and more, though a decidedly one-sided one; sees Merle trailing around after the Governor somewhat the same way Milton does but more intrusively, inserting himself into conversations, stepping and fetching. Couldn't get Rick's slot after all, so he's grabbed a hold of Martinez's instead, not that Martinez seems to resent it.

  
“That dude's _loco,_ ” he tells Rick that afternoon, out looking for Shane's group in the new Power Wagon with Morgan riding shotgun, while Michonne and Daryl jounce around in back. “And that's bad enough, but what's worse is whenever he's 'round the Governor, it's like...” He trails off, trying to find a way to say whatever he's dancing around that won't make Philip look bad. But Rick's less and less inclined to worry himself over the little social niceties these days, he finds.

  
So: “Like it makes him act crazy too?” he suggests, and Martinez shudders.

  
“He just gets...bad ideas, you know? And if it was you ridin' out with him, like the old days, you'd probably tell him how bad they are, but Merle—he's just happy to be there, no matter _what_ sort of shit the Gov's got going on.”

  
“Like what, Caesar?”

  
Martinez cuts his eyes sidelong, skittish, Philip's ever-present shadow falling over both of them. “...can't talk about that, man,” he maintains, eventually; “above my fuckin' pay grade, seriously. You should ask him, though, right to his face. He'd listen to _you._ ”

  
 _That's how much_ you _know,_ Rick thinks, cynically.

  
It's fascinating to him, increasingly, how people bend over backwards to excuse the odder end of the spectrum, in terms of Philip's behaviour—himself still very much included, if he's being honest. But Woodbury's a useful prop for him in that way, its very existence undeniable evidence of all the good the Governor's done for everyone who lives there, so even when confronted with something that doesn't fit the pattern, citizens tend to let it slide: he's tired, he's overworked, he gives so much, he's been through a lot. Just like we all have, but—on Philip, it automatically looks more impressive. Maybe it's the height, the voice, so warm and stentorian: approving as _Father Knows Best_ on a good day, disapproving as his own Dad's on a bad.

  
Merle never did come by to tell Rick what he wanted, not that he'd thought he would. And this morning, right before the army camp convoy was due to pull out, he overhead Philip telling him off about it, like he was chastizing some floor-shitting dog. Growling: _Need to get the hell over this thing you got against Rick Grimes, Merle, you wanna stay in our community—he's worth ten redneck idiots like yourself any day of the week, and that's not gonna change, no matter how many hissy-fits you throw about it. Makes me feel I might've wasted my time with you entirely, you can't see that._

  
But: _Why you gotta treat me this way, when all's I ever done is back you up?_ Merle shot back. _It's like you don't give one part of a damn if I live or die._

  
No answer followed, however, probably because Philip didn't seem to think such a whiny-ass complaint warranted one. And when Merle spoke again Rick could hear the pure, dumb hurt run all through his voice, stark as worms in meat.

  
 _Well, okay then,_ he said. _Guess I know the score now, Governor. But maybe you need to recall how there's things_ I _could say too, I only took a mind to—in public, even..._

  
Here he broke off of a sudden, though; almost mid-syllable, literally choked to silence. With Philip's voice adding, a mere second on—softer than usual, though not even slightly gentle—

  
 _Oh, but are you actually stupid enough to, Mister Dixon, with never a thought to what sort of consequences might follow? That would be the question, from_ my _angle._

  
A few garbled words followed, whispered low—apology, protests, Rick couldn't tell. Six of one, though; half-dozen of the other, in the face of Philip's obvious contempt.

  
 _What was that?_ he inquired, sweetly, as Merle struggled, helpless in his grip. _Naw, sorry; just can't hear you. Better speak up, or forever hold your peace._ Another pause. _No? Then I guess it couldn't really've been important enough to start mentioning in the first place, after all._

  
And off he went, leaving Merle behind to rub his throat and fume, a badly-banked trashbag fire. Something potentially toxic with a lid slapped on it, haphazard at best—half on, half off, and no particular regard for how the unsuspecting folks around it might suffer, it happens to flare up out of control.

  
“Is Philip drinking on his own a whole lot more, these days, or is that just me?” Rick asked Milton, a little while later, only to be met with a shrug; pinned him with a stare of his own, then watched him squirm a while, before admitting: “Um...maybe? I don't exactly keep track.”

  
“Doesn't seem to be sleeping much, either.”

  
“Well, he does have a lot on his mind. The helicopter crash, Lt. Welles dying, that whole thing with the army camp...”

  
“Welles died?”

  
“Well, yeah—he _was_ pretty banged up, when you brought him in. Doc Stevens had to amputate both his legs, and he coded halfway through.” Milton pushed his glasses up and made another note in his book, before adding, timid: “Thought you'd've already known that, really. I mean...that _is_ his head, up there at the top.”

  
He nodded towards the tanks, movement dragging Rick's gaze along with it. And—oh, shit, he was absolutely right; now that the blood had settled, Rick could see for himself how the topmost head _did_ belong to the poor Lieutenant, hair lifted and eyelids fluttering, as though he was still trying to dream.

  
“Christ!” Rick exclaimed, gorge rising. “Why—why the hell—aw, _man._ That ain't right.” He turned on Milton, already drawn back in his chair, all but cringing. “You need to get him down and finish him off proper, then give him a decent burial, for shit's sake!”

  
“I don't think the Governor would—”

  
“Governor's not here right now, Milton! So he's got _nothin'_ to say, and if it turns out later he wants words, then he damn well knows where to find me!”

  
A bit after, meanwhile—having already consulted with Andrea and Morgan, poring the map for potential hideaways they haven't bothered surveying yet, inside or just bordering the red zone—Rick was already on his way out the South Wall gate, his own team in tow. So he hasn't yet seen the pay-off on that particular decision, though he's fairly sure he may yet come to regret it, once he and Philip are back in close quarters.  
Screw it, though: cross that bridge when it presents itself, or even if, depending on whatever else Philip might find to distract himself with.

  
***

  
Thus far, the Lanyard shopping mall's been a bust, same as that horse-farm Morgan thought might make a good way-stop, you were branching out from the Greene farm following one of three roads that run nearby. Then they barely avoid one pod of biters only to drive straight into another, necessitating some fancy dancing, so they're forced to take things off-road—drive straight through a fence and down through a stream, flattening trees, the Wagon's huge wheels crunching over a tangle of branches and rocks, spraying dirt everywhere. Thank god those things are slow, is all Rick can think, or Michonne and Daryl would be shit out of luck, exposed like they are. Still, it's not like he asked them to come along, in first place...

  
( _And why would they?_ Philip's voice asks, logically enough. _'Cause they got some sort of ulterior motive, Richard, like everyone else; want to see how Shane's camp shapes up compared to ours, maybe, on Michonne's part, so she can sneak Andrea off there on the sly. As for Daryl, who knows? That boy's a bit of a mystery. But you better keep an eye on 'em both, just in case..._ )

  
It scares him sometimes, that voice—how easily it conjures itself, as though Rick's drifted into reckoning his whole damn life by Philip Blake time, even when the man himself is nowhere in sight. Highly doubts anything similar ever happens inside the Governor's head, at any rate, let's just put it that way.

  
So they stop in a field to stretch and piss, and Daryl comes drifting over just as Rick's tucking himself away, crossbow on one shoulder, while Morgan tries to interest Michonne in something other than scowling.

  
“Hey, Officer,” Daryl says, by way of a greeting. “Don't know if you noticed, but there's a prison just up over that ridge—Merle did time there once, like eighteen months. Kinda a family tradition, which's how I come to know 'bout it.” Rick waits for him to elaborate, raising a brow; he sighs, and does. “If it's anything like it was then, there's fences, high walls and fuck-you gates aplenty; good place to hole up, you could just clear it fast enough.”

  
Rick nods. “Bet you five bucks the guards all went home to their families when the shit hit the fan, but maybe they opened up the gates so most of the cons could leave too,” he thinks, out loud.

  
Martinez, who's standing nearby, agrees. “Ones who stayed might be pretty territorial, but...yeah, you probably _would_ head there if you had women and kids, 'specially if you were bein' chased. Let's check it out.”

  
Takes a little time to work out a route, and by then the light's starting to fade, which makes Rick nervous. The closer they get, too, the less welcoming that prison looks...up until the moment Michonne spots a light moving around inside, flickering. Somebody with a torch, maybe—human, for sure. 'Cause biters don't use tools.

  
The outer fence is down in places, biters moaning in front of those gaps, unable to get through because somebody's blocked them with vehicles. Martinez powers through ass first, then parks in the gap. “I'll keep watch,” he tells Rick. “Walkie you if it gets bad, man.”

  
“We'll come runnin',” Rick promises.

  
Then it's him, Morgan, Michonne and Daryl, running up that hill. Closer they get to the inner fence, the more activity they see. Morgan whips out a cut-up t-shirt and waves it, yelling: “Hey, don't shoot! We don't mean you no harm!”

  
“Stay the fuck back, then!” a voice replies, and somebody emerges from the shadow of the gun-tower: strapped, barrel up. A grim, biggish guy with a shaved head, battle-face on, wearing the remains of a Kings County Sheriff's department uniform shirt over muscle T and jeans, his 22 necklace so tarnished it barely glints anymore...

  
“Shane,” Rick says, mouth dry.

  
Shane squints at him; doesn't lower the gun, though he shakes his head, like he's trying to clear it. Then eventually says, in total disbelief—

  
“ _Rick?_ ”


	9. Chapter 9

He's been dead to them for two years, is how Rick figured it, all the way up here; he isn't expecting open arms, necessarily, or for everything to snap back to the way it used to be, for Christ's sake. But if Shane staggers under the realization of who he is like a punch, Lori starts crying the very minute she sees him—loud, almost hysterical, out of control in a way he's almost never seen her be, no matter how hard they were fighting over some ridiculous bullshit. While Carl just runs straight over, jumps up in his arms like a monkey, hugging Rick 'til he feels his ribs creak—God, he's so _tall_ now, hair to his collar, dirty from head to toe in a way Lori never would've let him get, before. Got a man-sized gun with a home-made silencer shoved down the back of his pants, too, and Christ knows how many figurative notches on its barrel...

  
...but any citizen of Woodbury could say the same, Rick knows, for all they've done their level best to let the kids be kids since the trek in from Atlanta. When you're under fire, every member of your group who can shoot's an honorary soldier.

  
Rick can't begin to hazard a guess what's happened since the last time he saw Carl, to all of them, which makes him want to cry as well. But he doesn't, basically because he knows damn well if he let himself, even for a second, he'd never be able to stop.

  
Whole lot of other people standing 'round staring, none of whom Rick can put a name to: some old man with a white beard, one leg missing from the knee one down, like it was chopped off with an axe sometime fairly recent; he moves slowly, stumping along on crutches. Behind him come two girls, one dark-haired and armed, the other blonde and gentle (but armed as well). Nobody without a weapon at all, actually, that Rick can see, from the nerdy Korean guy to those two jumpsuited ex-cons, the stocky black man to the woman who looks like a former housewife, a dingy floral scarf neatly tied over her cancer survivor's haircut.

  
Shane comes in at Rick's elbow, already reaching out for Lori, who flinches back, grabbing her swollen stomach. “You told me he didn't make it!” she screams at him, voice shrill, though more with pain than with anger. “God damn you! Said you went to the hospital and he was still sleeping, that _nobody_ could've gotten out of there...”

  
“I _did_ all that, baby, I swear! That's my _brother_ there, for Chrisssake—really think I'd've left him for walkers to chew on, if I'd thought there was a chance in hell he'd wake up?”

  
“Liar, you're such a _liar,_ Shane Walsh! Oh God, oh Jesus, _Rick_ —”

  
But: “Don't blame him, please,” Rick cuts in, still holding Carl just as tight, so hard his arms start to hurt. “Lori, he couldn't've known...hell, I might as well _have_ been dead. He couldn't've got me out of there, not even if he tried—”

  
“—and I did,” Shane repeats, fast as Rick says it. “Swear to fuckin' God, I did.”

  
“I believe you, buddy.”

  
Conversation might've gone on a lot longer, except for the fact that right about then's when Martinez walkies up, voice a crackling mass of static: “ _—swarm, Rick! I need extract, right fuckin'—_ ” And Shane's group snaps into gear, even faster than Rick's; gets the inner gate open again just as Martinez falls headlong against it, all of them stabbing, tire-ironing and what have you through the fence while Shane pulls him out of harm's way and Rick pops the biter who's got him by the calf before it can chomp down. Takes a half-hour of steady work to thin them after that, but when Carl, Lori and the old man—Hershel, Shane says his name is Hershel—start chucking Molotovs down from the guard-tower and setting the fire-brakes they've already piled here and there along the inner field on fire, the whole herd turns back the way it came.

  
Shane and Rick stay outside 'til they're gone from sight, which gives them a little time to reconnect. Rick tells the tale of his hospital escape, just the way he told it to Morgan and Duane, then Philip; Shane shakes his head. “Jesus,” he says. “Always knew you were a tough little son of a bitch.”

  
“Hey, that's my momma you're talkin' about, boy,” Rick shoots back, automatically. “She'd've whipped your ass she heard you talkin' that way, 'specially if you were blaspheming while you did it.”

  
“Ain't _that_ the truth.” Shane pauses, grin fading. “Man, can you imagine? Good damn thing she died long 'fore this shit started happening.”

  
Rick can't disagree. So many people he used to know are probably dead now, one way or the other, and that's probably just as well. God knows, he sure as hell wouldn't wish this world on anyone.

  
“You're not mad, though?” Shane asks, eventually. “About...Lori 'n' me?”

  
Rick shakes his head. “Can't be. You got her out of Cynthiana, didn't you? Carl, too. Got my thanks forever for that, and as for the rest—well, you know we never made it easy on each other, her and me.”

  
“She's hard work, that's for sure. A real firecracker.”

  
“Thought you liked 'em that way, though.”

  
“Hmmm, yeah. I did too, 'til I found out better.” A beat. “Still and all—it's kinda funny, when you think about it: when we're good, we're _good_ , like she can read my mind. Work well together, 'specially for other people. When shits's going well, we fight about _everything,_ but when it all hits the fan, she'll back me up in a heartbeat. Keeps me on track. So, in a way...”

  
“What?”

  
“...well, with all that, in a way—it's kinda like you married yourself.”

  
There's another pause, longer this time. No movement along the fence at all, now. They can probably go back in, soon's they get relieved.

  
 _Does explain a lot, in hindsight,_ Rick finds himself thinking. And chuckles a bit, out loud.

  
***

  
“Woodbury, that's where we come from,” Rick tells everybody, around a supper of canned pasta and baked beans. “About ten miles from here, other side of the red zone. Morgan and Martinez here were both there when we took it back, cleaned out all the biters, built walls. We've got guns, a farm, a viable social infrastructure. Got a med center and a real doctor, too—no offense, Mister Greene—who's delivered about five babies so far with no loss of of life and no serious side-effects, for mother or child.”

  
“None taken. Lori, you got to know that all sounds...pretty damn good, considering how close you're gettin'.”

  
Lori nods, and: “Well...” Shane begins. Before he can go any further, however, Michonne's already jumped right in.

  
“Yeah, it's damn pretty picture, at least on the outside. But when're you gonna tell 'em about the Governor, Rick?”

  
“Who's that?”

  
“Man who runs everything, this pretty-boy, Jim Jones cult leader type. Rick here's his right-hand man.”

  
“His _name_ is Philip,” Rick hears himself snap, annoyed, “Philip Blake. And he's like...my age, Christ. He's not _pretty._ Not to mention just 'cause you took a dislike to him on sight, Michonne, it don't mean he hasn't done the lion's share of good for us.”

“Fuckin' A,” Martinez chimes in. “I mean—dude's got his problems, but if I hadn't met him I'd still be trapped in Atlanta, tryin' to keep what used to be my wife and kids from eatin' my face. Saved you and your boy too, Morgan, didn't he?”

  
“Um...that was Rick, mainly,” Morgan apparently feels constrained to admit. “Governor wouldn't've even known where we were, without him.”

  
“Sure, but he _did_ go back for you, right? And when he had his idea 'bout Woodbury, he brung you two along...”

  
Rick sighs. “Morgan was the one came up with that, in the beginning,” he says. “But Philip approved it, and we all planned it out, together. Plus it was him down on the ground with the rest of us, right out in front, when we killed biters for a whole solid week to make that place ours.”

  
Martinez nods, as does Morgan. Michonne snorts.

  
“Okay, fine,” she says. “Those fights, though—that's not the work of a well man. Classic bread and circuses, keep everybody hootin' and hollerin', so he can do whatever he wants behind their backs. So what happened, in between? Why's he feel he needs it, when supposedly everybody trusts him—and why _do_ you trust him, anyhow? Rick?”

  
Rick can feel everybody's head turn, literally or figuratively, and it makes his face go hot. “Because...” he replies, finally, “...there's things I know 'bout him, that make me. Stuff you all don't.”

Morgan: “Well, I guess, but—”

  
“ _Other_ stuff, Morgan! God damn!”

  
Rick pauses, annoyed at himself for snapping, as Morgan raises an eyebrow; Michonne's watching both of them now, very carefully. “Such as?” she asks.

  
 _Oh, shit._

  
So...he finds himself telling the story of Penny Blake, here in this candle-lit room with a cooling plate balanced on his knees; haltingly, reluctantly, 'cause in the end, it's not really his tale to tell. But Philip's gone to such trouble to make sure he's never had to, thus far, that Rick really does know he can't count on him ever reconsidering. And this is the cornerstone, the wound underlying every weird decision Philip's made since; Rick has to get them to understand that it could have been him (or Lori, or Shane) doing this over Carl, Morgan over Duane, Martinez over _his_ kids. Anybody over their own child, no matter or not if they'd have normally put a bullet through the eye of anybody else's.

  
Children are hope, he knows they all know. To lose one is like losing the whole world, even when the world—such as it is—seems well and truly lost already.

  
There's a lull, and Rick can see the headscarf woman—Carol—looking off into the distance with her face squinched like she's caught in a memory, something fresh, almost unbearably hurtful. But to his surprise, it's Michonne who speaks again, saying—

  
“Okay, well; that's something, at least. Makes me feel for him. Now me tell _you_ a story.”

  
The facts are awful, as he somehow knew they'd be, given the way they've hardened her: headlong flight, a mad scramble for survival, the camps in Atlanta. Her son's father and her little brother, retreating into drugs while she fought to kep them all fed, all safe. And then, at the last moment, coming home to find the walls down, biters everywhere. Both men changed and her son gone, torn apart between them, his pitiable scraps consumed by the same people who should have loved him best.

  
“I went crazy,” she says, matter-of-fact. “Just ran headlong into the herd, cut 'til I was covered in blood, guts, so thick they couldn't smell me anymore, so they stopped trying to eat me. Went back, and Mike and Terry were still there, with A...and I was so angry, I thought: 'I'll fix it so they can't run from what they did, so they work for me in death, like they didn't in life.' So I took their arms, their jaws, and I chained 'em up, took 'em with me, so they'd keep the others off. Like I was leading my guilt through the world, chained just as tight to it as it was to me.

“Andrea started waking me up out of that, when I found her, after the farm. Reminded me I was still human, after all. And by the time we met, Rick, I was as good as I'd been since I first walked out of there, hardly noticing the place was gettin' bombed around me—but what'd you think, exactly, when first you saw me? I strike you as sane, or well-adjusted? Would you have put me in charge of a whole goddamn city?”

  
Rick shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. “Wouldn't've thought that was an option.”

  
A curt laugh. “'Hell no,' that's what you really mean; me either. So yeah, we all got our somethin', but we don't just owe it to ourselves to deal with it, do we? We owe it to those around us, too.”

  
 _He gets bad ideas,_ Rick hears Martinez say, in his mind's ear. Sees Philip lounging in front of that tank of heads with a drink in one hand and his eyes ever-so-slightly unfocused, staring at the one on top. Lt. Welles's head with its fluttering lids and restless, seeking mouth, floating in the murk.

  
“Look,” he starts, at last, “if I really thought Philip was any kind of danger to Woodbury, 'stead of just to himself, sometimes—”

  
“You'd do something about it? I get that, Rick, I really do; seen enough of you so far to believe you mean what you say, at least. But that friend of yours, he's got something goin' on deep down inside that makes every other word out of his mouth fantasy at best, outright lies at worst. If he really cares for your town the way you claim, he needs to recuse himself and let somebody else take over a while, so he can get his own house in order—you, maybe. But he's not about to do _that._ ”

  
“Why not?”

  
“'Cause he likes it too much,” Michonne says, decisively. And sits back down.

  
***

  
That night, Rick lies awake thinking about what she said. Hershel claims Lori's been having false labor scares for a week now, so that sets the med center dancing in front of his eyes...but what if Philip really is sliding on over from sad and in shock but dealing to someplace considerably more dangerous? And is it Rick's fault for pulling back, pushing him headlong into making Merle Dixon his new best friend? It's a bad mix, what with their behaviours playing off of each other all the time, persuading them towards an ever-odder idea of what's acceptable...but folks used to say the same about him and Shane, from grade-school on, and it's not like they've killed each other yet, let alone anybody else who didn't already have it coming.

  
Still, Shane never did really know what he wanted before now, more's the pity. Whereas Philip does, and always has, for almost as long as Rick's known him: Woodbury, lock, stock and two smoking barrels. The perfect stage from which to pretend he's someone he's not, and have everybody in town applaud him for it.

  
It takes a few more days to fully re-stock and get the Wagon up to snuff again, during which Daryl pulls Rick aside and tells him if Rick's willing to clear a way out, he thinks he probably can get Merle to go with him. “And that'd take a load off your mind, right? Might make it easier to get the Gov back on track, you had him all to yourself again.” As Rick looks at him: “Hey, now, ain't like _I_ care what you two used to get up to together, or nothin'...but I know Merle does, which is weird, considerin' I never thought he was that way inclined. When you know somebody's available, though, I guess it must piss a guy off to be all the time fishin', and never get a bite.”

  
And: “Look, Daryl,” Rick replies, “can't say I'd be sad to see the back of your brother, exactly, but the same's not true for you. I've seen what you can do—everybody has. You're stand-up. There's a place for you in town, if you want it.”

  
Daryl sighs. “Yeah, well, thanks for that. But it ain't for me to leave Merle behind; that's in God's hand, I guess, if there even is one. All's I know is as long as he's still up and kickin' it's me and him, at least 'til one of us ain't.”

  
The next morning, Shane and the others line up to tell them goodbye. “I'll send a message back when it's safe to come,” Rick promises. “Morgan, maybe, or Michonne—even Andrea, it turns out she wants to hook back up with you guys. One way or the other, I'll make Philip understand it's better to make friends than enemies. Can't see why he'd object, but...”

  
“I get it,” Shane says, his arm 'round Lori's waist. Lori leans forward to kiss Rick briefly—first on the cheek, then the mouth. Holds it a little longer than any one of them's entirely comfortable with, but Rick doesn't have the heart to ask her to stop.

  
“I don't want you to go,” Carl says, fiercely.

  
“Don't wanna go either, bud, but I gotta. It's for Mom. You understand.”

  
“Uh huh. Come back, though—soon. Okay?”

  
“You just try and stop me.”

  
Hershel's older daughter and the Korean kid—Glenn—drive the prison's outer “gate”'s vehicles open, far enough to let them pass through, then close the gap again. The trip back is silent, mainly; Rick has no idea what everybody else is thinking. Barely has any idea what _he_ is, if he's honest.

  
The North Wall gate swings open as they approach, somebody shooting off a flare. Philip meets them in the square, striding along grinning, a cheering crowd at his heels, Andrea finally out of bed and looking better than ever by his side, holding onto his elbow like they're bound for dinner and a movie. Merle's leant back against a tree with his arms crossed, scowling, as Rick gets out of the Wagon.

  
“Well, look who it is!” Philip booms. “Some good news, huh, everybody? Thought for sure something'd happened, you didn't come back on time. Still, not like we haven't had our own share of excitement, in the meantime...”

  
Rick glances 'round: no new faces that he can see, but three more vehicles in the Town Hall lot—all army—and Shumpert's carrying what looks like a damn bazooka. “You found the rest of Welles's guys?” he asks, as Michonne crosses over to Andrea, hugging her; they have some sort of low, hurried conversation, and what Michonne hears doesn't seem to please her much, though Andrea's chatting away oblivious, seeming not to notice.

  
“What was left of 'em, sure. Not much, after the biters had been and gone.”

  
“...seriously?”

  
Philip shrugs. “Equipment only takes you halfway, Richard. I think their morale was shot, 'specially after the helicopter went down, and Welles was AWOL. Sad story, but there you have it: their loss, our benefit.”

  
 _Uh huh,_ Rick thinks, hair on the back of his neck literally starting to lift, the more Philip beams down on him. Because all of a sudden, he's remembering the times he went out and came back with both people _and_ stuff, while Philip's mainly—almost always—come back with stuff, no people. Thinking about how, for a guy so in favour of authoritarian structures, it strikes him Philip might be feel a mite threatened by the idea of interacting with uniformed soldiers who'd consider him nothing more than either a civilian militia leader, or a former office worker pretending to be one. Who wouldn't take kindly to taking orders, at least from him, thus making them the sort of new recruits Philip has little to no use for; an accident waiting to happen, far better left outside than in-.

Because nothing gets into Woodbury without the Governor allows it, really...or back out of it, for that matter.

  
“Why're you looking at me like that, Richard?” Philip asks, quieter, as all this passes through Rick's head, amost instantaneously. “I mean...you almost look like you think I'm telling a lie. Now, would I do that, to you?”

  
“Not that I know of.”

  
“Exactly. You're my good right hand, after all; be no earthly reason to.”

  
(But: _because you thought you could get away with it, maybe,_ Rick can't stop himself from continuing to think, in response, carrying his musings through to their most illogical, logical end— _wishes_ he could, by Christ, with all his not inconsiderable might. Yet, in the end...just can't.)

  
Morgan's further down the street, hunting around, trying to find Duane, who's nowhere to be seen. Calling his name, now, in increasing distress, bordering on panic. He turns and casts fearful eyes back on Rick, who looks at Philip, who looks down, face falling. “Oh yeah,” he says, almost to himself. “Yeah, about that—gotta take him aside for a minute, give him the bad news.”

  
“ _What_ bad news?”

  
“Well, Duane, you see...he came out with us, to find those army boys; stowed away, actually. Didn't even know he was there, 'til we got into range. And then..."

  
A small, curt shake of the head, which Morgan somehow manages to see from all the way down the street; it hits him like a bullet, making him slump, head visibly reeling. Michonne catches hold of one shoulder, Haley the other, and they set him down gently on a nearby bench, so he can cover his face and start to shake. Daryl watches from Merle's side while Merle keeps his eyes trained on Rick and the Governor, to the exclusion of all else. And as for everybody else—they don't even seem to notice, really. Too busy celebrating, 'cause Philip told 'em there was something worth doing it over.

  
“Yeah, it's sad,” Philip says; “a boy like that, so young. But what happened out there in the zone, anyhow? You find 'em, or not?”

  
Slowly, Rick looks up, meeting those guileless, unreadable eyes. And for the first time in a long time, he notices how Philip's smile doesn't ever really seem reach them, not even when it slides sidelong, turns wry. Not even when, as Rick's always admired his ability to, he's laughing at himself.

  
And: “Nope,” he lies, without missing a beat. “We never did.”

  
“Aw, too bad. Well, you can always try again, later.”

  
“That's right,” Rick agrees. And looks back to Morgan, who's got his head down, sobbing, inconsolable. Like he's lost the whole damn world. 

  
_Cared a lot when it was_ your _kid,_ he thinks, staring back at Philip, who's gesturing Andrea over, and goggling a bit when she runs into his arms. _But there was only ever one of her, wasn't there? And the rest of us...well, we don't rate, in the end. Never quite to the same degree._

__  
Haley takes his hand, then—says something, Rick can't quite hear what, though he nods and smiles nonetheless. His eyes on Michonne now, still there by Morgan, her hand on his shoulder. Staring at Philip as he bends to kiss her friend, with such outright hatred it makes Rick want to shudder, even though he knows he shouldn't._ _

  
_What have I done?_ he wonders then, for the first time, though definitely not the last. _Oh, sweet Jesus. What have I_ done?  



	10. Chapter 10

Sometimes, Rick almost thinks he can remember what it was like, being in the coma...that long dark, nothing cut with more nothing, absent even of his own former understanding of what absence _was._ And it's not like he misses it, exactly, but—the worse things get now he's awake, he does find himself musing that it must've been quite something, not to know you had anything to worry over.

  
He waits until Haley's asleep, then slips out of bed, dressing in the dark. Lets himself out onto the now curfew-denuded street, torches ablaze and carefully spaced for maximum coverage; only people out here now are watch patrols, and he knows their patterns well enough to avoid coming into contact with any of 'em, having written half their protocols. Of course, Philip _did_ write the other half, which explains how he can creep up on Rick as he crosses between trees on the commons so easily—just slip an arm around him from behind and twist to send him slamming neatly ass-first up against one of the trunks, where shadow hides them both from prying eyes, so he can hove in and kiss him for the first time in months.

  
After all this time, Rick's surprised—and a bit dismayed—to feel their mouths come together with the same familiar jolt, the same hot sting: Philip's whisky-flavoured tongue frisking his while his hands do the same to Rick's body, so amused by the startled response he gets that he keeps on pushing forward even as Rick pulls back, only letting go when he halfway tries to bite. “You need a shave,” he tells him, licking his lips, while Rick automatically starts to do the same, then makes himself stop, and blushes at the way that just makes Philip grin all the more.

  
“Thought you were with Andrea, these days,” is all he can think to say, wincing at how hoarse it comes out.

And: “I do enjoy her company a great deal, that's true,” Philip agrees, shamelessly. “She's amazing woman; got a lot of common interests, me and her, not to mention how much I like makin' Miss Michonne fume. But none of it means I don't think about you too, from time to time.”

  
Rick snorts. “Man, you just want everything, don't you?”

  
“Always have, yes—whatever I can grab, and why not? It's basic human nature.”

  
Rick thinks he might well disagree with this evaluation, if only he was allowed to. But before he can start, Philip's already kissing him once more, deeper yet and laughing while he does, so Rick can feel it rumble through both their chests. 'Til he breaks away at last, exclaiming—

  
“Ha! I'd ask if that was a gun in your belt or were you glad to see me, but...'course it is. Should I be worried?”

  
Rick's already got one hand on the butt and the other raised as far up as it'll go against Philip's chest, painful-cramped by sheer proximity; he lets both relax, marshalling himself, willing his breath to slow. “You don't do that again, then no,” he manages, a heartbeat or so later.

  
“Fair enough, then; I won't. Not without asking first.”

  
So magnanimous of him, the massive son-of-a-bitch. They stand there a long moment, Rick finding it all a trifle hard to process, before the Governor finally sighs, and steps back.

  
“I don't want to fight, Richard,” he says. “Don't want you for an enemy, no more'n you want me for one. It's my opinion that wouldn't end well at all, for either of us.” _Probably not,_ Rick thinks, as Philip continues: “Yet it does fascinate me, given what we were just talkin' about, how it most-times seems like you don't want _anything,_ 'least not for yourself.”

  
“Uh, well—'do unto others,' all that? I mean, I'm pretty sure you went to Sunday school, once or twice—”

  
“My old man was firm on religion, yeah, for all the good it ever did him; my brother too, with much the same result.” He pauses, considers Rick a second, like it's just occurred to him. “You remind me of him, sometimes. Oh, almost never, thankfully, considering what-all we've got up to together. But right now, for example...”

  
Rick swallows. “Thanks, I guess.”

  
With hardly a pause: “Yeah. 'Cause right now you're trying to figure out what went wrong with me, how it is I could've got to here from where you think I started out. But on some level, you're also coming to realize I maybe never did begin in the same place as you at all, much as I might've let you think I did...and that scares you, just a little.”

  
They look at each other then, straight on, and what Rick sees does indeed make him flush all over—cold, then hot, then cold again. Gooseflesh raising itself all along his spine, prickled high, even in this damp heat. Perceiving threat and remembering—at the exact time—how it felt to share Philip's bed, straining under him, feeling him strain in turn; the coiled strength in that long frame, striving against his own; enfolding, and being enfolded. To lie there quiet after, listening to a heartbeat that could just as well have been either of theirs or both, run all through them like current.

  
All those times superimposed, a thousand tiny instances of gentleness in an ungentle world, shared between men who already knew themelves capable of almost anything.

  
This is why it would've never worked, he suddenly knows, between Philip and Merle—'cause the Governor needs somebody to push back against him, and Merle just wants to roll over, expose his belly. He'd do just about anything Philip asked him to, probably, which guarantees in itself how Philip never will; as Rick's come to understand, Philip thinks what's easy is boring, so much so he'll make his own drama, it somehow turns out he can't find any. A bit like Lori, in a way, and doesn't _that_ very idea ring hollow and awful, right down deep to Rick's own core. Like he rode all the way from Cynthiana and helped make a whole new town for himself, for everybody, only to find he'd never left home at all.

  
Philip's right about one thing, though: when it comes, as it must, any throw-down between the two of them will spawn so much collateral damage, it might as well take place at Ground Zero. Too bad for everybody else in Woodbury how Philip won't care all too much who gets taken down in the blast, along with Rick; too bad for Rick he _will,_ and can't just decide not to. Be a whole lot more practical for all involved, in the end, if he could.

  
In the here and now, meanwhile, Philip's still studying him with arms crossed, waiting for some sort of reaction to his last admission. Which is the only reason Rick can find to rouse himself enough to clear his throat, eventually, and ask—

  
“What was it ended up happening to that brother of yours, Philip, exactly?”

  
“He died,” Philip promptly replies, quick as that first kiss, without any sort of emphasis at all. “'Cause, far as I can see...that's what heroes do best.”

  
Then turns his back, after all that, and simply walks away.

  
***

  
Then it's a week on, give or take, since they came back into town; days of watching Philip surreptitiously, while Philip watches him just as close. He knows he should get a message to Shane and the others, but can't think how—Martinez is the only one of 'em who might have a chance, but he's right back in Philip's camp, shrugging apologetically every time Rick sees him pass by: _Sorry, man._ Guy knows which side his bread's buttered on, obviously, not that Rick can really blame him, 'long as he supports Rick's impulsive lie by keeping his mouth shut.

  
And so it goes, a dull grind of dread cut with fear, 'til one evening Rick sees Morgan—laid out with grief almost this whole time, occasionally emerging from his quarters only to drink 'til he staggers back inside again—coming down the street towards him, haggard but upright, with Michonne and Daryl trailing along behind.

“Hey,” Rick greets him, painfully aware just how little that serves to communicate even a fraction of what they're both feeling, but Morgan doesn't even bother acknowledging it. Instead, he looks Rick straight in the eye, and says: “I need to see him—Duane, I mean. His body.”

  
Rick nods. “Okay, well; Milton's got it still, most likely, though it _has_ been a while. Might not look all too good, given how hot it's been...” Then adds, hurried, as Morgan's face twists: “...but we'll get you down there, okay? I swear. We'll see it done.”

  
A half-hour later, they're all in Milton's cold room, that freezer-sized area at the back of the lab where he uses a combination of embalming fluid and various dessiccants to keep the tied-down biters he chooses for experiments as fresh as possible. There's an area behind a screen where fallen citizens end up, waiting for their traumatized relatives' permission to be released into “full death,” a gruesome process that traditionally involves decaputation, then dismemberment, then being reduced to ash in the Woodbury Pottery Hut's old-style wood-burning kiln. The Carters conduct most combo memorial/funeral services afterwards, though the Governor's been known to officiate too on occasion, if people ask him to.

  
When Milton folds the sheet down to let Morgan take one last look, Rick's relieved to note that Duane doesn't seem all too horribly changed aside from his ashy lack of colour, plus the bullet-hole pocking his temple. Though he is surprised to see him still wearing the clothes he went out in, and no Y-incision. "Didn't autopsy him?" he asks; Milton shakes his head, uncomfortably. "Governor said to hold off," he replies.

  
"Uh huh. Any idea why?"

  
"Well, uh..."

  
 _No,_ in other words. But before Milton can draw it back up again, Morgan grabs the sheets edge and keep on pulling, revealing the rest of his son's pathetically shrunken torso, before wrenching up Duane's shirt to check underneath. Rick hears Michonne draw a breath, sees Daryl wince; Milton himself gasps out loud, the most noise Rick thinks he's ever heard him make, when not under fire.

  
“Oh God,” he says, haltingly. “That's...those are... _oh._ I mean...”

  
Rick nods again, grimly. 'Cause he's seen this sort of thing before, plenty of times—hell, one of these same wounds he bears himself, a through-and-through which went up under one armpit and out past his collarbone, just nicking an artery. That's why he went into a coma in the first place, after surgery, so it occurs to Rick how Duane might have survived at least that one hit, if not the several others, he'd only been close enough to town when it happened for Philip to let Doc Stevens give it the old college try. Or maybe not, in hindsight.

  
“...this boy did _not_ die from walkers,” Michonne finishes off, with the same sort of ferocity Rick can glimpse rising in Morgan's eyes. “He died in a damn firefight.”

  
“That's army ordnance,” Morgan agrees. “So what the Governor said, 'bout Welles's boys...that was bullshit, too.”

  
Milton's trembling all over now. “I don't think—” he begins, weakly, but Rick puts a hand to his mouth, stopping him right there: _no,_ enough; _no more apologizing on Philip's behalf just 'cause you like him, or want him to like you. You're gonna listen now, goddamnit, whether you want to or not._

  
“You know it ain't right, Milton,” he tells him, low and level. “Philip's my friend too, but this needs to be addressed, in public, same as any other town code matter. Can't have the government acting like a law unto itself— _himself_ —now, can we, even in a state of emergency? It's just not civilized.”

  
There's a pause, which almost seems to last forever, until—

  
“But I can't make him _do_ anything,” Milton whispers, as if to himself, into his own neck. “You know that, Rick. You _know._ ”

  
And Rick puts his hand on Milton's shoulder, firmly, comfortingly; meaning to be both, though one or the other will do, in a punch. Replying, as he does: “Not alone, no. But—you won't _be_ alone, will you? 'Cause we'll all be there with you.”

  
Milton hesitates, then cringes as Morgan shoots him a look like if he doesn't do right he might end up strangling him with his bare hands just 'cause he's the only thing of Philip's that's close enough to get to, besides Rick. But Michonne takes Morgan's arm, restraining him, and Daryl gives Milton the tiniest possible thumbs-up, like: _Go on, buddy._ While all the while, Duane just lies there shot full of holes, his eyes rolled back, each a bare thready white slit glimpsed through swollen lids. Looking so much like a stretched-out version of Carl, Rick almost thinks if Philip _was_ here, they'd already be down on the floor beating the crap out of each other, not stopping 'til one or both of them was just as goddamn dead.

It doesn't go like that in the end, though, as he really should have fucking known it wouldn't, when he thinks it over later. Because in this sorrowful new world of theirs, as experience only continues to prove, it's always right when Rick most believes he's got things figured it turns out he doesn't, and never really did.


	11. Chapter 11

Sun's almost down when Rick finally goes to confront the Governor, with Daryl, Milton and Morgan in tow. Michonne—who's agreed to make a break for the prison while Rick and the others provide distraction, in order to warn Shane just how much he needs to stay out of Woodbury after all—branches off as they pass by Philip's apartments, where Andrea's apprently staying. “Need to talk to her one more time,” she says, gruff, but close to apologetic as she ever seems to come. “If I can get her to go with me, this'll work a whole lot better than if I'm alone.”

  
“How likely's that, though? Said yourself she didn't believe you, about Philip.”

  
A sigh. “Yeah, well...I know she was high when I left her here, but it does seem like a few rounds of good sex has knocked all sense out of her, that's for sure. So—I don't know. What would you suggest?”

  
Rick thinks for a second, more because he's wondering if he really has the heart to do this than anything else. Oddly enough, however, he finds the answer is yes, particularly under current circumstances.

  
“You said she had to kill her little sister again, after? 'Cause she didn't want her walking around like...one of them?”

  
“That's right.”

  
“Then tell her what happened with Penny Blake, would be my advice. See how well _that_ goes over.”

  
Michonne cuts him a surprised look, as though she's been suddenly forced to re-evaluate “Officer Friendly”'s capacity for ruthlessness, and likes the results. But Rick's already back in motion, headed towards the North Wall, where he knows Philip oftenmost spends the magic hour drinking booze-laced coffee and shooting the shit with various passersby. It's not the Town Hall at high noon, but it'll have to do.

  
Philip sees them coming, of course, and straightens up further, smile screwed on tight. Merle Dixon's hanging around same as usual, near but not with him; Rick can see Martinez further in the background, talking low to Shumpert, but that's about it. Not even half as many casual spectators as Rick might have hoped for, either.

  
_He knows,_ a voice whispers, at the back of Rick's head. _Don't know what, or how much, but...something._ Which is pretty useless advice, all told, but hard to ignore, especially when accompanied by a vague cold spreading up his spine; almost makes Rick want to reach for his gun, he wasn't so almighty aware of Philip's intent gaze beaming down on him from above.

  
“You look like a man with somethin' on his mind, Richard,” the man in question suggests, using what Rick thinks of as his classic Governor voice. To which Rick replies, with as much similar cool-headedness as he can muster—

  
“More Morgan's piece to say than mine, really. I'm just here for...moral support, you might say.”

  
“Well, that certainly sounds provocative.” Adding, as he switches his gaze Milton's way: “And how 'bout _you,_ Mister Mamet? Not exactly somebody I expect to see makin' the rounds at this hour, 'long as there's still lab-work to be done.”

  
“Um...” Milton begins, with visible reluctance—but is forced to step aside almost immediately as Morgan shoulders his way to the front, demanding Philip's full attention.

  
“Listen up, Governor,” he says. “I went down to see my boy's body, and what d'you think I found? No bites, no scratches, not one shred of evidence he'd come into contact with walkers at all—just a shit-load of bullet-holes, well beyond the one you put in his skull.”

  
“Uh huh. And?”

  
“What you mean, 'and'? Ain't that _enough?_ ”

  
Philip regards Morgan for a second, then nods and sighs, heavily; lets a sharply familiar look spread over his face—guilt, sorrow. A hint of anger too, mainly aimed at himself.

  
“You're right, of course,” he admits “Shouldn't've misrepresented to you, Morgan, not after all we've been through together, you and me and Rick; that was a bad choice, on my part. It's just...sometimes you make the wrong decision, you know? Under stress.”

  
It's the right play, obviously; Morgan's eyes fill up with tears, voice turning gruff, hoarse. “Don't try to tell me you _feel my pain_ when you're the one got Duane killed, you son-of-a-bitch,” he manages, at last, but Philip just shakes his head.

  
“Never,” he replies, firmly. “Hell, how could I? I mean...sure, I know from experience how an only child leaves a hole nothin' will ever fill again, but for me, that's years ago; I've made my peace with it, in large part thanks to Rick here, who helped me through the worst patches. And that's why I should have just bit the bullet, sucked it up and tried to do the same for you—'cause much as I know you'll come to the same place eventually, I sure can't _trick_ you into gettin' there. Be cruel, and stupid, to pretend otherwise.”

  
Morgan rocks back a bit from “Rick here” on, understandably shocked; Milton gasps and Martinez glances away, while Daryl widens his own double-take to include Rick, who feels his eyebrows climb. Can't tell if it's a put-on or what, but Philip seems so genuine he can already see Morgan wavering, even as Merle and Shumpert look equally mystified.

  
“Just what the holy hell you talkin' 'bout, Governor?” that insufferable jackass demands, inevitably, to which Rick hears himself snap back, on auto-pilot: “Shut your damn mouth, Merle.” But Philip simply raises a hand, waving them both silent, and replies—

  
“It's all right, Richard. I already know you told Morgan and the rest what happened with Penny, when you were all out at the prison...that's my daughter Penny, Merle, who died in Atlanta. How I brought her back here after, hid her in my room, played pretend she wasn't really just some dead-meat cannibal puppet who'd've eaten my face off, I hadn't kept her on a leash.” And now it's Merle's turn to make a weird little noise, half-wheeze, half-snicker; Philip hears it and nods, mouth twisting. “Yeah, go on ahead and laugh, I deserve it. 'Cause the plain fact is, Morgan, a dead body's a blessing, compared to the alternative; Rick taught me that, so I guess I wanted to spare you the same, in a way. But no—that's makin' me sound like I want to think I'm some sort of hero, and I don't; I'm not. Not even vaguely.”

  
“Philip...” Rick starts, without thinking, sympathetic sorrow rising high in his throat—then catches himself, suddenly realizing what he's just heard: _oh shit, oh hell._ That cold feeling blooming again, prickling him all over, like frozen sweat; Philip regarding him narrowly, affability turned suddenly grim. 'Til Rick repeats, finally, for lack of any better option: “...the prison?”

  
“Well, sure. The place they're all holed up, those people you stopped over with, most of last week—your wife, your son, that old friend of yours, _Shane._ Same ones you told me you never did find, after all that effort, right to my damn face.” And here's Philip's smile back once more, wider than ever, if far more fixed. “I mean, you didn't really think I'd believe that, did you, knowin' you like I do? Ride out of here on some holy mission to reunite your family, then you tell me you struck out, but don't even seem to care? Not too convincing. But then again, given there was somebody else along for the ride I could just ask it was true or not, it's not like I needed to take _your_ word for it, much as I might've wanted to.”

  
Rick—and Morgan, and Daryl—glance at Martinez, who shrugs: _sorry,_ ese. Milton looks like he just got stomach-punched. Merle laughs out loud, meanwhile, after a shamefully long moment.

  
“Hell, I get it,” he announces. “This is 'cause of them folks came in a couple of hours back, right?”

  
“It is indeed,” the Governor agrees. “'Cause you see, Rick, I was actually gonna send somebody to go find you, you hadn't all of a sudden happened to come by yourself. Got some _very_ exciting news to share, the kind you really kind of need to see it with your own eyes.”

  
Leaning in a bit further, then, so Rick can feel his breath on the side of his neck, a memory made flesh; laying one big hand on Rick's shoulder, poised to grip but not doing so, not just yet. And adding, almost in a whisper, as he does—

  
“Sort of an object lesson on why we none of us should lie under pressure, all told...not me, and most especially not you, Richard, 'leastwise when you have something to lose in the doing so. 'Cause the sad fact is, you're just so God-almighty _bad_ at it.”

  
***

  
From in back of the med centre's former head office's two-way glass, Rick can see Carl sitting between Haley and Rowan in the waiting room, a can of Coke in one hand, chattering away; Shane's sat nearby, arms crossed and glowering, covered on one side by that kid Garjulio and on the other by Truong, who sports a split lip. Through a slightly open door, meanwhile, Rick can glimpse Lori up on an examination table—forward-braced in that same time-honoured position he recalls from the fifteen hours of labor preceding Carl's birth, both hands pressed to her belly and sweat running down her face, biting her lip as Doc Stevens takes her vitals.

  
“Yeah, they turned up wanting to see you, so I let 'em in, told 'em I'd get you directly,” Philip murmurs, bent to Rick's ear from behind, looming over his shoulder. “I mean, Andrea'd let slip already how Mrs Grimes was havin' a baby—not yours, I can only assume—but apparently, it's happening right damn now. And they'd've sent word they were coming, but they didn't know how...a miracle they even got here, really, travellin' through the red zone like that. Still, you really can't blame 'em, can you? Anyone would do the same.”

  
“Philip—”

  
“Ssh, Richard. What do you think, I'm gonna let your ex die in childbirth, just 'cause you decided I wasn't trustworthy anymore? I strike you as that sort of a man? Wouldn't be very charitable, to say the least, given all you've done for _me._ ”

  
Rick swallows, with effort; tries his level best to plan out what to say next only to have the very mechanics of the act defeat him, temples pounding and heart hammering high, like he's just done some kind of speedball.

  
“That's my _family_ in there,” is all he can think to remind him, at last, which he knows is probably the wrong way to go, though he can't help it, goddamnit. But Philip just nods, replying: “'Course it is, and we're gonna take the very best possible care of 'em, don't you worry about that. Can't have you distracted, not when I need you on top of your game.”

  
“For what, exactly?”

  
“Goin' back to the prison, naturally, to tell those folks how I got their leader and his woman, your son, his little brother or sister-to-be: convince 'em they need to bring themselves and whatever they have back here, where things are safe. Where I—where _we_ —can look after 'em.”

  
“They're not gonna want to do that, Philip. They shed blood clearing that place out, just like we did—it's theirs now, and they're not gonna give it up that easy, if at all. Would you?”

  
“No. But then...I don't have to.”

  
And: Rick knows damn well he should turn, should look at him directly, appeal to his better judgement—what little of it remains—but he just can't take his eyes off of Lori, Carl, Shane. So he stands there instead, locked in place, as the Governor talks on and on, never really raising his voice: talking about the future, about base-building vs. expansion, foundation vs. defense, like he thinks he's some sort of small town Sun Tzu. Explaining, with hideous plausibility—

  
“I know you disapprove of my methods, Richard, 'specially considering what happened with Duane Jones...but the plain fact is, that's why I didn't tell you what I had planned, why I waited 'til you were out of town to do it. 'Cause I knew you'd never accept that we needed Welles's equipment instead of his men, guns and ammo and whatever other toys it turned out they had, not however-many new mouths to feed. I mean, c'mon: you seriously telling me you never thought about how things're gonna be in ten years, in twenty? We already live in a state of perpetual emergency; there's scarcity of food, scarcity of products, scarcity of weapons, and it's just gonna get worse. Nobody's makin' anything anymore, so eventually, we're gonna run out—have to put a capper on population, or suffer a substantial decline in standard of living. And other communities, they're competition, threat on top of threat. We have to protect ourselves.”

  
“But...”

  
“Look, this is just what I used to _do_ : numbers, budgeting, risk management, in and between the copy-toner-changin'. You're a cop, you want to save everybody...I get that, I respect it. But sometimes, you have to cut your losses.”

  
Rick pauses, makes himself take a calming breath, before making himself reply: “Yeah, that does all sound pretty good, up 'til the point where you remember how by _obsolete legal standards_ what you really just did was kill a bunch of army guys and jack their shit, like any thug with a gun.”

  
“Bunch'a guys who used to _be_ army, yeah—but who do you think they were representing these days, exactly, beyond themselves? The government? That's gone, and it ain't comin' back. We're the government now.”

  
“ _You_ are, you mean.”

  
Philip gives a huffing growl, like: _why've you gotta be so stubborn, you damn donkey?_ “Six of one,” he maintains.“'Sides which, you can't trust those people! You don't know 'cause you weren't there, but I was, like I'll bet your friend Shane could tell you. When the time comes, these bastards don't put civilians over uniforms; they triage, they prioritize. So they rounded us up and put us in that Atlanta camp saying it'd be safer, then let the walls fall and left us behind, and when that didn't work, they bombed their own damn city—these guys, or guys just like 'em. _They let my Penny die._ ”

  
Which isn't untrue, and Rick knows it, more the pity. But he has to ask, nevertheless—

  
“Uh huh. Sure this all doesn't have more to do with knowin' that if you recognized their authority they might expect you to cede them yours, though?”

“More, no. Some? Hell, yeah.”

  
Said with such fervence, Rick can almost convince himself he believes it. Still, he's heard all this before, one way or another.

  
“You need to stop lying to me, Philip, just for one goddamn minute,” he lets himself say, therefore, still not turning. “So either tell me what this is _really_ all about or stick your knife in my back, 'fore I get bored enough to leave your sorry ass behind.”

  
Another growl, and suddenly he's got the Governor slamming up against him, with a thump everybody on the mirror's other side can probably hear; Rick squirms around, elbowing Philip in the throat so they end up nose to nose, all bent over and panting. Philip's lips are drawn back like a dog's, and Rick matches him, wondering how fast he could bury his teeth in the taller man's neck—stays like that 'til Philip gulps, lets his grimace fade, trying to pull his “company” face back on.

  
“You are...the one and only person I'd let talk to me like that, ever,” he allows, finally, voice hoarse with effort. To which Rick snaps back, unimpressed: “Yeah? I'm flattered. Now answer the goddamn question.”

  
Philip looks down, then back up—down to the left, up to the right. Doesn't that mean he's lying already? Rick vaguely think he remembers reading that somewhere, back before the world fell to shit—on Google, or in some book about profiling. Saw it on TV maybe, not that it matters one tiny fucking bit, in context.

  
“Truth is, then...” he begins, slowly. “...if you do leave, which I can only think you're plannin' to, then people are gonna want to go with you. And I can't have that."

  
“Wait, _what?_ Why the hell would you think—”

  
“'That's my family in there,'” Philip repeats, bitterly. “And isn't that nice, 'cept for the fact I can't really sympathize, can I, Rick? 'Cause _my_ wife is dead and Penny's gone, so all I have is Woodbury, and you... _had_ you, anyways. 'Til I didn't, anymore.”

  
“Philip, Christ.” Rick shakes his head, trying to clear it. “You think I don't care about Woodbury, 'cause I lied about finding Carl and Lori? The one's got nothin' to do with the other—this is is my place just as much as anybody else's, as much as yours. I'd never do anything to jeopardize that...”

  
But Philip doesn't seem to be listening, anyhow; already straightening up and moving back, hands up, like he's warding something away, as he continues: “Fine, though, whatever—can't get in between you and them, not now I know where your true loyalties lie. And why not? Lori, that's one impressive woman, adultery aside; Carl's a great little biter-killer, just like his Daddy. Shane I can mainly take or leave, but I can still see the attraction, though I'm pretty sure a real buddy doesn't get somebody else's wife pregnant...”

  
“Man, be serious. Are you _jealous_ of my wife, my kid—my old partner? That what this is?”

  
“Shouldn't I be? What the hell can I mean to you from now on, you got _them_ here?”

  
“You're my friend too, Philip. You'll always be my friend.”

  
The Governor laughs, and Rick hears a crack in his voice he hasn't since the day Penny “died” again, clear enough to make the sweaty hair on the back of his neck stand up. “Oh, and was I your 'friend' every time we got drunk and fooled around, Richard?” he asks. “Because it didn't feel like that to me at the time, I must admit...still, couldn't've been all too much of much, I guess, in the end. Not if Merle goddamn Dixon was enough to rub the shine off of it.”

  
And: _Don't make me your enemy,_ Rick hears him whisper from just the other night, inside his skull; remembers what it felt like to be pressed up against that tree with Philip's tongue in his mouth, both of them just as hard for each other as ever, poor Haley and Andrea aside. _Don't think that'd work out all too well, for either of us._

  
When he gets like this, all tranced, there's no telling what he might do, beyond the obvious—kiss or kill, tell the truth or lie, go off like a damn grenade. Rick sees him carving his way down Main Street, barely seeming to notice Rick beside him, axing biters away as he rammed one almost his size into the War Museum door with his knife wedged between its snapping teeth, then kept on forcing it upwards 'til sheer momentum peeled the top of the thing's skull off like a lid; wants to keep that away from Carl, from Lori, if at all possible. But—he's still Philip, and Rick's still Rick. They've come too far together to forget that, hopefully, no matter what either of 'em might say.

  
“I _do_ bring the prison people back here,” Rick says, therefore, carefully, “then I need your word you're not planning to harm 'em, or do anything to 'em, short of trying to get 'em to stay. That's not negotiable. One way or the other, though, you need to remember this—do anything untoward to what's mine while I'm gone just 'cause you get to distrusting me again, and you for damn sure won't like the result.”

  
A flicker of smile lights that familiar face, dim and crooked. “Yes sir, Officer Grimes.”

  
“These are real live boys and girls, Philip. Can't just pull a bag over their heads and sling 'em back inside the closet, they do something you don't like.”

  
Philip's—the Governor's—eyes widen. “Hell of a similie to go to,” he points out, to which Rick nods, somewhat amazed himself, at his own daring.

  
“That's why I used it,” he agrees. “Now...do we have a deal?"

  
“Yes.”

  
“All right, then. Have Shane brought in, I need to talk to him before I go.”

  
Philip nods one more time, gathering himself into a reasonable facsimile of his "normal" self, and reaches for the door. Throwing back, as he does: “Gonna trust you to do the right thing, Richard, regardless of threats. You're pretty good at that, usually—”

  
( _—most heroes are, or so I hear._ )

  
The minute he's gone, Rick slumps back into the corner, sagging—covers his face with both hands, blocking out the light, and listens to his own breath for a long count of ten. He'd give his left nut to see Carl, just once, but he knows that'd undo him totally, and he can't afford it; not now, with everything on the line.

So he waits 'til Shane's pushed in a gunpoint instead, and explains the situation, as briefly as he can. Apologizes. Tells him he'll make it right, while all the time hoping that's so.

  
“I'm gonna fix this,” he promises, meaning every syllable. And: “I believe you, buddy,” Shane replies, repeating his own words back to him, that time at the prison gates. Meeting his gaze straight-on, and expecting...

...all but _daring_ him to, in that inimitable Shane-like way...

...Rick either to make them come true, or die (and kill) trying.


	12. Chapter 12

Later, much later, Lori will tell Rick how Philip sat with her throughout the worst of her labor—faster by far than with Carl, the way all second childbirths tend to go, but still not fast enough. How he sponged her forehead and cheered her on, held her hand in his, kept up a steady stream of comforting patter; _Has a nice voice, that man,_ she'll say. _Kind of...soothing. Like a preacher's._

  
 _You hate that shit,_ he'll remind her, and she'll laugh a bit, jogging Judith in her arms; _Yes I do,_ she'll agree. _But he kind of makes you forget all that, doen't he? In the moment._

  
 _He can, yeah. That's how Woodbury got built, basically._

  
_Well, that makes sense. One way or the other, though, he really brought me through—I was grateful. Put Judith in my arms, once they got her all cleaned and dry, and Doc Stevens'd sutured me._ Here she'll pause a moment, take a breath, reaching carefully for the next few words. _And it was only then, only at that very moment, I finally noticed he had blood all over his hands—dried, you know? Old, like from a while back. Like he'd killed somebody just before he came in to me, and never even bothered to wash up._

  
 _Merle,_ Rick will think, but not say, as they sit there quietly together—him unable to keep from remembering that awful scene back at the North Wall, right before he left for the prison, while she gets Judith settled in for a doze; playing it over in his mind, wondering what else he really could have done, aside from just watched. Then he'll look up once more, only to find Lori staring him oddly.

  
 _He calls you Richard,_ she'll say at last, quieter. So as not to disturb the baby.

  
 _Well, that_ is _my name, honey._

  
 _But no one_ calls _you that, Rick—never has, not as long as I've known you. The way he'd talk about you, too...it's like he thinks he owns you._

  
 _He doesn't, though._ Adding, as she hesitates: _Hey, c'mon now. I got you_ out _, Lori—you and Shane, and Carl, and Judith. Don't that count for anything?_

  
 _You know it does! I just—_ her voice'll trail off here, breaking. Small: _Just wish things were different, is all. Than they are. Than they're gonna have to be._

  
And then she'll be crying, and he'll be doing the truncated equivalent of holding her—touching her from an arm's length away, cupping the back of her head the way he used to after every bad fight, feeling her shake. Stroking her hair and saying, all the while—

  
 _I know, honey. I know, I know...me too. Me too._

  
( _Me too._ )

  
***

  
When people tell about the battle of Woodbury, if they do, they'll say it went in phases. A thousand tiny little moving parts, some pre-planned and some spur-of-the-moment, with Rick the current that drove the mechanism overall—him _and_ Philip, really, to be more exact: Rick knowingly, Philip un-; together, but apart. Just like always.

  
First off, he puts a fresh new version of Team Rick together, tapping Daryl and Morgan both, as Philip probably expects him to. Pulls Haley aside and gives her a message for Milton, a code they both agreed on before Rick and the others even left Milton's lab. This will pay off eventually, and Rick hopes Haley never figures out she's responsible for the results.

  
Philip meets them at the North Wall, gate already half cranked open, flanked by Merle, Martinez and Shumpert, bazooka and all—Rick's beginning to think the man sleeps with that damn thing, considering he hasn't seen them parted since they all came back from the prison together. He can already tell from the set of Philip's shoulders that he's pissed, and has a pretty good idea why, but he waits to be told nonetheless...not for long, as it turns out.

  
“Should've known when miss Michonne didn't come along with the rest of you that something was up,” the Governor throws out, eyes boring into Rick's, like he's trying to take an x-ray of the inside of his skull. “Still, there you go—due consequences of tryin' to be nice, I guess.”

  
“What's the problem, Philip?”

  
“Like you don't already know Andrea's gone, and Michonne with her. Or how they wrecked my damn place 'fore they went, which is gonna be harder to fix than you might think, given Michonne was using her sword.”

  
“That last part I didn't, no. But really, are you surprised?”

  
“Not a lot that surprises me, these days.” He nods at the others. “This your crew for the prison run? Seems pretty...partisan.”

  
“Want to add somebody to the mix you trust more than these two, or me, go right on ahead,” Rick replies. At which point Merle all but throws up his hands, like: _Oh, me! Pick ME!_ But Philip just shakes his head, and waves at Shumpert instead. “Take him,” he says, and turns to stride away, but Merle grabs his arm before he can.

  
“Hey, now, Governor,” he complains. “That's my li'l brother you're sendin' out there—I got a right to back him up, now, don't I?”

  
Philip looks at Merle's hand like it's a particularly disgusting slug that happened to somehow pick his sleeve to die on. “I'd let go, I was you,” is all he says, making Merle bristle, and snap: “Yeah? Well, you _ain't_ me, are you—just some jumped-up asshole thinks he's the Second Coming, elected himself brand-new king'a Georgia just 'cause he's taller than everybody else, or some shit. Actin' all high 'n' mighty, like you give a runny jack-shit blondie stepped out on you, when everybody with eyes knows damn well what you're _really_ pissed off over is how your boyfriend here went lookin' for his wife, found her, then didn't tell _you_ —”

  
Now it's Daryl's turn to semaphore one-handed, trying to shut Merle up, not that it's even vaguely working; Rick, Morgan and the others just stand there, frankly flabbergasted. But Philip simply smiles at Merle, wide and sunny, as though the man's finally managed to do something he approves of—then narrows his eyes in a way Rick's come to find frightening, and shoots back:

  
“Sure, that's right. And _you_ 're just pissed off I never let you suck my dick...but you don't hear me yellin' about it in the street for everyone to listen in on, now, do ya.”

  
Merle turns red, then white. “You giant-ass faggot motherfucker,” he whispers, and lunges; “Merle, no!” Daryl screams, starting to dive past Rick, who grabs him before he can get much further. While Philip just laughs right in Merle's enraged face, like: _Come at me,_ Deliverance! Before anyone can figure out exactly how it's happened—a quick draw with the retorted insult as distraction, would be Rick's first guess—he's already fallen straight onto Philip's knife, impaling himself; Philip snarls and lifts, getting him a good foot off the ground before dashing him back down, retrieving the weapon as it slides out, along with a portion of Merle's guts. Then stomps on Merle's arm as he attempts to raise it against him, slashing the knife through Merle's wrist in a way that leaves it half-severed.

  
Daryl screams again, as does Merle, but it cuts off as Philip bends to grab his flap-hanging hand, tearing it free with one swift yank; he lobs the thing like a softball, hitting the nearest of several slow-massing biters right in its face. “Better go get that, 'fore stinky there makes a breakfast on it.” he tells Merle, who's hugging his wrist to himself, roaring—before rearing back a tad, just enough to gain momentum, and kicking Merle straight out through the gate.

  
This last part is what finally prompts Morgan and Martinez—previously shock-rooted and standing there frozen, like their batteries'd been pulled—to spring back into action. They're still hauling the gate back into place when Daryl sags in Rick's arms, weeping angrily, and Rick hugs him closer, staring at Philip over Daryl's shaking shoulders.

“The _fuck,_ ” he manages at last, drawing nothing more than a shrug, for all his outrage. “What was _that,_ when it's at home?”

  
“Object lesson,” Philip replies, coolly, a phrase Rick's rapidly coming to think he's more than a little in love with. “Now go do what I told you, then get your ass back home.”

  
“Gonna kill that bastard,” Daryl mutters, hitching a final sob, as they watch the Governor walk away. But: “Get in line, hillbilly,” Morgan says, with Martinez nodding beside him, while Shumpert just stares after Philip as though he's never quite realized before just how goddamn batshit insane he really is. Or maybe has caught a whiff or two of it before, more likely, before somehow managing to persuade himself he must've been mistaken.

  
“You coming, or staying?” Rick asks him, therefore, sharp enough to shiver the other man awake once more. And Shumpert turns to meet Rick's eyes, eyebrows hiking, before demanding in return: “You really _sleep_ with that freak, Grimes?”

  
“Just answer the question, Cleveland.”

  
Shumpert shakes his head, huffing; exchanges a quick glance with Martinez, who nods, which seems to seal the deal. “Never did like him anyways,” he replies, eventually. "Sucker laughs at his own jokes, even when they don't make no sort of sense at all."

  
They leave by the East Wall, to avoid whatever else the smell of Merle's blood brings running. And by the time they're deep in the red zone, it's already time for Phase Two.


	13. Chapter 13

Of course they track pods of biters, it'd be stupid not to—a basic, like taking care to be aware of the weather, 'specially so when it's the sort of weather can kill you. Woodbury sends out survey teams almost every day, updating the common maps every third day on good weeks, every fourth day on bad; there's an entire storefront office set up to deal with such things, complete with one of the world's last xerox machines, and that wasn't even Philip's idea originally, though he lead the spearhead to approve it in council. All of which makes it fairly easy for Rick to get hold of the most recent draft before he leaves town, planning to check it once they're safely away, use it to develop a strategy.

  
This idea is deferred only slightly when they run across Michonne and Andrea about three miles out, stranded by a micro-herd after having stopped for “just a minute” to let a green-to-the-gills Andrea throw up in the bushes. Biters once disposed of, however, Rick rolls it out, and they form groups: Morgan, Michonne and Andrea will go north, off towards where three different survey teams saw enough biters to warrant turning back; Martinez and Shumpert will stake out the area just beyond Milton's newly-set up “fights field,” where a creepy wind-driven steel sculpture sends out moaning noises meant to attract fresh fodder for the pits, and herd the result back Woodbury way. And Daryl and Rick will hit the prison, hoping they can persuade enough people to cooperate with the rest of Rick's plan to make it work—two or three to do their own herding, while the rest come in with Rick as “applicants” for Philip's protection.

  
“Timing's gonna be tight,” Morgan observes, and Rick agrees; he's banking Lori'll be out of danger sometime in the next three to eight hours, though there's no way to check. Andrea, meanwhile, puts paid to that second idea—Philip says they're setting up for a fight tomorrow night, “to celebrate,” or maybe just 'cause he likes how they get everybody in town jacked up, which means the field'll be occupied.

  
“Red zone it is, then,” Rick says. “Harder, definitely, but there's always lots of action out there—that's why it's off-limits.”

  
Martinez nods. “Yeah, well...if that's the way it's gotta be, I'm still in. Cleve and me can do it.” And Shumpert nods back, even as Michonne tells Andrea, who's starting to look queasy again: “ _You_ should hit the prison, too—they know you there, trust you, way they got no reason to trust Daryl and Rick. 'Sides which, way you're feeling, you need that doc of theirs to take a look at you.”

  
Andrea flushes. “I'm _fine,_ Mich. Just stomach flu, or something.”

  
“Uh huh. Well, let me just ask this: you and the Gov been usin' protection?”

  
Andrea goes white.

  
A few hours later, she, Rick and Daryl are approaching the prison fence, horn blaring. The welcome they get is...better than Rick might've expected, given: not actively warm but not full-on murderous either, though he thinks that might be because they spotted Andrea from the watch-tower.

  
“I was wrong,” is the first thing he feels constrained to say, to which Hershel Greene gives a dismissive wave, tutting him like he's some child. “For wantin' to think your friend _wasn't_ insane? Please. I stockpiled walkers in a barn once myself, son, my wife amongst 'em—Carol's daughter too, much as I didn't know it, at the time, and _I_ turned out okay. People react different ways under pressure, that's just how it is, 'specially if they turn to the bottle rather than Jesus.”

  
Rick isn't all that sure Jesus's ever had much to do with anything Philip did or didn't do, even before the dead started rising, but mentioning that doesn't seem a particularly relevant thing, right this very second. So: “Let's talk about options,” he begins, instead, turning to Hershel's older daughter—Maggie, he remembers now, her name is Maggie—as that kid Glenn takes her hand, waiting to hear what he has to say.

  
***

  
They make it back to Woodbury by sunset, which is good, from Rick's point of view: more cover, more distraction, even if the fights weren't already in full swing. When Garjulio asks him where Morgan, Martinez and Shumpert are, he tells 'em they fell behind, halfway expecting to be disbelieved—but he's Rick Grimes yet, after all, isn't he? The Governor's good right hand, as Philip's so often taken care to remind him.

  
And here's the man himself, watching from the fight-pit's upper reaches and all leant back with his long legs wide-spread, like it's some goddamn wooden throne; catches sight of Rick and the prison contingent and sits up, grinning. “Well, look who it is!” he booms, genially. “These the folks from the prison? Welcome to Woodbury, ladies and gents—we've got cold drinks, some of 'em alcoholic, and the entertainment's free.”

  
Rick scans the crowd and spots Carl sandwiched between his handlers, Haley and Rowan, no longer chattering; he's staring down into the pit instead, eyes wide, horrified at what's in progress down there—and when Rick traces his eye-line, he realizes why. Because not only is the person playing gladiator Shane, as Rick only now realizes he halfway expected to discover, but the biter he's currently engaged in fighting is a shambling, one-handed hulk who not all that long ago used to answer to the name of Merle Dixon.

  
“Think he's smarter dead than he was alive, somewhat,” Philip observes to Rick—who's already striding forward to meet him—while barely managing not to smirk, as he watches Daryl try not to react. “I mean, I found him up a _tree_ ; must've bled to death, clinging for dear life and cursing the biters below. Too bad, really. I might've done something with a man like that, he hadn't wanted your spot.”

  
But: “The _fuck,_ Philip?” Rick demands, jumping onto the seats themselves, as spectators scatter. “What the hell sort of welcome wagon is this, exactly? Kind designed to make new recruits feel safe, or make 'em puke their guts out? And you got my _son_ sitting ringside, too—he's twelve years old, goddamnit! What's up with _that_?”

  
Caught off guard by Rick's aggressive refusal to be charmed, the Governor raises his hands in mock defense, admonishing: “Now, don't get mad, Richard; Shane volunteered for this, said he thought it sounded like a fun way to celebrate his daughter's birth...”

  
“That's the craziest shit I've ever heard you come up with and that's sayin' a _lot,_ so cut the crap and get him out of there, NOW! Where's my wife?”

  
“Recuperating, she's fine, they're both fine. Rick, calm the hell down—”

  
But Rick just continues talking over him, up in his face like a rat-killing dog and wondering all the time if Milton's nearby, when his part in all this is going to kick in, exactly. Throwing back, loud enough that Philip can't quite stop himself from recoiling: “—and Merle, _really_? These people _know_ him, for Christ's sake! I told them you were reliable, put my ass on the line for you—”

  
“Look, just _listen,_ I—”

  
Right here is where things start to move and fragment, though, thankfully. Because first there's an explosion from the direction of Milton's lab, followed by another—bazooka-powered—which levels the South Wall gate. People jump and veer, grabbing for weapons, yelling loved ones' names; the prison group make a break for it, knocking their armed “escorts” flying. Shane kicks hard enough into Merle's knee to break it, using his back as a combination step-stool/hurdle from which to make a wild leap for the pit wall's lip when Merle goes down on hands and knees. He's still struggling to make it over the top when Philip grabs onto Rick, who promptly responds by kneeing him full in the nuts, and _they_ 're still struggling when poor old dead Merle manages to catch hold of Shane's flailing leg, pulling hard, teeth snapping; Andrea's just popped up between Haley and Rowan, twisting Carl free while dragging him back, but Rick can't reach his gun no matter how he tries, and it looks bad. Up until Michonne swoops in from the other side, that is, yelling at Shane to go flat even as she scythes down with her sword and the blade passes clean over Shane's bald head, grazing it only slightly. The trajectory sends it shearing right through Merle's neck, popping his head clean off.

  
Philip slams Rick down on the seats back-of-the-skull-first, dazing him, and stares at him like Rick's just turned into somebody else entirely. “You fucking little traitor,” he says at last, amazed, before punching Rick straight in the face.

  
It's a mistake, Rick now realizes, ever to let yourself think high feeling alone can give five-foot-eight the advantage against six-foot-four, especially in close quarters. Because Philip is hammering on him hard now, and all Rick can really do is lie there and take it—spit blood, shield his face a couple of times with both crossed arms, drive his knee back up into Philip's gut and push. Manages to whip his gun out at last, but even that's a bit too little, too late; Woodbury's streets are full of gunfire and moaning, staggering biters, but all Philip Blake wants is to strangle the man he holds responsible one-handed, and Rick's eyes are turning up, his sight going dim...

  
But then Shane's there, thank God: hooking the Governor up under his chin, breaking his grip, pulling Rick free. And Daryl's right beside him, Michonne panting at both their elbows, raising his crossbow.

  
“This is for Merle, asshole,” he tells Philip, letting fly. And Philip goes down, jack-knifed just enough to make the arrow skitter over his socket rather than into it, slashing his eyeball wide open. Screams like a wounded horse and flips over, rolling back down the rest of the stadium-slanted seat-rows, 'til he clunks his own head back against the ground and knocks himself unconscious.

  
***

  
Rick has only a few snatches of memories to pick through, after that. Getting loaded into a van with Shane driving, Lori and her baby on the one side and Carl cradling Rick's bloody face on the other, crying. Michonne and Andrea tell him later that they slipped in when the gate went down, with Morgan, Maggie Greene and Glenn not far behind; Michonne went for Lori and the baby—Judith—while Andrea went for Carl. Passed by Milton's place only to find it in complete shambles, a still-burning body propped against one wall with glasses shattered but still held on by one unbroken temple-post, so Michonne suspects he must've screwed up setting the bomb somehow, after setting his experiments free: wasn't a demolitions expert, after all, just an academic with weird hobbies. “Had guts, though, I guess,” she says, which isn't the world's worst epitaph, considering.

  
“He feh...bad, I fink...near th' end,” Rick agrees, mouth not quite yet healed enough to talk without pain, and Lori shushes him quickly. Then turns him over to Morgan, who gives him the quick run-down on everything else—how Martinez and Shumpert got caught in a tangle and had to be left behind, though they were doing okay when he last saw 'em (and after they turn up at the meet, Rick assumes what happened was they just shifted alliegance back to Philip, so as not to face the wrath of all his remaining supporters); how he saw Philip come to when a walker literally tripped over him, then roll and kill it with his bare hands, before Papa Carter and Nguyen helped him stagger off towards the med center. Would've taken a shot if he could even at that distance, but there just wasn't time, which he dearly hopes Duane can understand, wherever he is now—

  
—to which sentiment Rick nods again, hoping the same. Glad to once more be told how Morgan doesn't blame him for the boy's death, at least...or rather, that if he does, he doesn't do so even half as badly as Rick still blames himself.

  
Which brings him, neatly, almost all the way back to where things began: Woodbury recovering, the prison likewise. Their meet, the Governor's ultimatum, Rick's puke cooling on the sawdust-covered floor. A decision to be made, and fast, before that tank finally swings into view.

  
 _Give you a couple of days to think it over,_ Philip said, but Rick take a week at least, and he doesn't push. Maybe because, on some level, he already knows which way Rick's going to jump, anyhow.

  
 _You're predictable, Richard,_ that phantom voice rumbles, in the very back of Rick's mind. _Always have been, right from the very start. But then, heroes do tend to be, I've found._ As Rick just lies there looking at the cell they've assigned him's grafitti-covered ceiling, rocking his loosened teeth back and forth with his tongue and thinking, to himself—

  
 _Ah, but maybe you don't know me quite as well as you think you do, Philip; consider that, just for a minute. Been standing next to_ you _for the last three years, remember—running your errrands, doing your dirty work, letting you hide behind my face. Would a “hero” do all that, even duped, let alone keep letting you drink him into bed with you intermittently, while he did? Wouldn't he just somehow know how trusting you was the absolute wrong way to go, deep down in his good guy's heart, long before you actually had to pull him aside and_ tell _him?_

_  
So maybe I'm not one, after all—not as much of one as you've always like to think, anyhow. And maybe, just maybe, what that means is...I never really was._

  
Lying there in the darkness, healing up and wondering What Would Philip Blake Do?, studying on that thought like the Governor really is the post-apocalyptic self-made savior Merle Dixon once accused him of thinking he was. Until, eventually, it comes to him, full-formed—not quite in a flash of light, so much, as its exact opposite.

  
 _Lori's not gonna like this,_ Rick thinks; Shane either, let alone Carl. But it's gotta be done, all the same.

  
He turns over, therefore, closing his eyes; tries to sleep at least a little, now he's finally resolved on a course of action. And waits for the sun to come up, all dim and low and bloody, so he can tell them to their faces exactly what has to happen next.


	14. Chapter 14

NOW:

  
When he's done with Lori, given her what scant comfort he can, Rick presses a kiss to Judith's head and breathes deep, trying to imprint her sleepy newborn smell on his memory: hello and goodbye, baby, hail and farewell. Then looks up again to catch Shane watching him from the door, that all-too-familiar flat, slightly resentful look finally back in his eyes, even after everything that's happened—same one Rick remembers from way back, 'fore the Academy, 'fore high school...everything, really. Same one he wore for at least part of every day they spent as kids in Cynthiana, envying Rick justabout whatever happened to come his way, whether he actively wanted it or not.

  
And this, too, is why Rick can't stay, even if it was possible otherwise; he knows that now, sad as that fact might be. 'Cause maybe he never did have the knack of picking friends without issues even before he first let Philip take his hand and pull him up from where he sat by the campfire, let alone allowed him to kiss him once, twice, however many times, by the end.

  
 _You always do want to think well of people,_ Lori threw at him once during a particulaly memorable fight, maybe a year after Carl's birth, that began with her slapping his face and ended with them both draped over the end of their living-room couch, making love quiet as they could to the baby-monitor's hum and hiss. _Everybody but yourself, I mean...and me, too. Be damn nice if you could put us first for a change, just now and again._

  
Well, here's his chance, Rick guesses: her, Carl, and everyone else too, in the devil's bargain. Even Shane, he has the stones to shut up and take it at face value.

  
“She's a beautiful girl, buddy,” he tells Shane meanwhile, as he straightens, feeling his still-wrenched back crack and his bruises sing; “privilege to hold her, if only the once. You take care of her momma and brother for me, now.” And sees that sulky shadow lift off of Shane's face in return, quick as blinking—sees him give himself a tiny little shake, like: _the fuck was I thinkin', anyhow? This is Rick, man; we come up together, all the way to our badges. Lay down my life for him in a second, I had to, and him for me._

  
“I sure will,” he says, gruffly. “Thank you, brother, for everything.” And pulls him into an embrace, just hard enough that Rick can feel the erratic way he's breathing, the sheer effort he's putting into staying Steve McQueen cool.

  
He'll get over it, though. For the best, that's the mantra; Rick has to keep on telling himself that, probably for years to come. However long it turns out to take.

  
Outside, though he fervently hopes he won't, he nevertheless finds Carl waiting with his face screwed up, a squinty, mean little look Rick knows all too well. “You can't go back,” he tells him, without preamble. “They're all crazy there, Daddy—they put Shane down in that pit, made him fight a walker and laughed, like it was on TV! Bunch of crazy folk, and Andrea's friend Michonne, she says that guy the Governor's the craziest one of all.” 

  
Hard to refute, considering what they've all been through, but Rick's tired, so damn tired. Tired way down in his bones.

  
“They're just people, Carl,” he manages to reply, after a moment. “Governor's the only one...and he wasn't always that way, either; got worse after his daughter died, like you do. The most of 'em are just a little good cut with a little bad, same as you and me, as Mom and Shane. Same as anybody.”

  
“I don't want you to go, though. You just got back!”

  
“I don't want to either, bud. But sometimes, it just works out how you don't get what you want, no matter what; sometimes, you gotta do what's right for everybody _but_ you.”

  
“That's stupid!”

  
“Maybe so. Be good, okay?”

  
Carl shakes his head, ferociously. But when Rick goes to hug him he doesn't resist, hanging on for dear life and hurting five times as much as Shane, 'til it's finally time to disentangle him.

  
This is how he'll remember him, he knows. How he'll remember them all, 'til he can't anymore.

  
Looks up again, straight into Michonne's eyes, and nods. “Time to go,” he says. She nods, unsheathing her sword.

  
They do.

  
***

  
Daryl and Morgan go with them, possibly because they don't trust Philip not to've told his people to kill Michonne on sight regardless, for which Rick is grateful. Their goodbyes are relatively curt, comparatively, though Morgan gets a bit misty. “Don't forget what he is,” he warns Rick, who wants to smile at that, but can't. “As if,” he replies, clasping Morgan's hand, instead. Then turns to the others, and says—

  
“I'm gonna tell you what I told Shane, and Lori, and Hershel's bunch: my aim here is to buy you as much time as I can for a head-start, then I'll kill Philip or die trying, probably both. Odd are you won't see me again either way, so you gotta promise you'll get as far as you can from here long before anybody of his thinks to come looking for you.”

  
Daryl frowns. “Quit the prison, just like that? I mean, I'm used to runnin'...just surprises me you could sell everybody else on that pitch, considerin' what they been through.”

  
“He has a tank, Daryl, and he aims to use it, now or later. Ask Michonne, you don't believe me.”

  
“Why'd you think I wouldn't, man? You've been pretty good to me, all told.”

  
“To you, maybe. Not so much to Merle.”

  
“Hell, that was his choice, hard as I might've tried to stop him makin' it. You two just had the same wrong taste in dudes, is all.”

  
And: Rick doesn't hugely want to agree, but he can't completely reject the thesis, either. So he simply nods instead, before turning to Michonne. 

  
“Same goes for you and Andrea, 'case you were wondering,” he tells her. “You need to run as far and as fast as you can, and don't even think of coming back for me. Stay with the group if you can, Shane don't piss you off too much, or Lori Andrea. Tell Carl...” Here he stops, swallows—this part is harder than he thought it'd be, and that was hard enough. “Tell Carl I'm dead,” he concludes, finally. “That Philip killed me after all, and he needs to deal with it. 'Cause it's pretty much true already, and it might _be_ true for real, soon enough.”

  
Morgan winces, Daryl spits. But Michonne only asks him, in return—

  
“So what is it you're really gonna do, Rick Grimes?”

  
Rick sighs, thinking. Because it's not that he doesn't have ideas, so much, as how best to put them into words, let alone action.

  
“Jump on that big bastard and ride him far as I can in the other direction, I s'pose,” he replies, after a long moment's pause. “Says he wants me, needs me...well, let's see what-all he's willing to pay for that privilege, when pressed on. What he's willing to do to _earn_ me.”

  
She gives him that coolly measuring look he's come to associate with her, then sighs and nods herself, one last time, as if for punctuation. Like she's finishing a sentence.

  
“Would've liked to've got to know you better, Officer Rick, all things considered,” she says, at last. “But I s'pose it wasn't meant to be.”

  
“S'pose it wasn't, nope, but...me too. Now _go._ ”

  
And he steps out into the road, waving, signalling the sentry on top of that fresh-piled piece of crap used to be Woodbury's South Wall.

  
***

  
Rick half-expects to be met with the firing squad already assembled, or maybe hopes for it, on some level. But of course, that doesn't happen. Instead, Philip—far better-groomed than the last time he saw him, and newly-outfitted with an eyepatch—welcomes him home with literally open arms, and a cheer rings the air. Rick's glad to see Haley's still alive, as well as Rowan; walks past Martinez and Shumpert, raising his brow, only to see them shrug almost in tandem. And Philip makes sure to show him off to the new people, the tank camp bunch: Mitch, the tank's driver; Pete, Mitch's brother and that group's unofficial leader, at least 'til Philip hove into sight. The Chambler family, Lilly and her little sister Tara, plus Tara's hot new National Guard girlfriend, Alisha.

  
“And this here is Meghan,” Philip says, smiling paternally down at a girl clinging onto Lilly's leg, an unwitting shy, blonde little variant on the basic Penny Blake model. “She's a bit scared of me yet, aren't you, honey? Thinks I'm a pirate.”

  
“I can see how that'd be,” Rick says, going down on one knee, same way he once did with the original recipe's mortal remains. “Hey, Meghan—glad to make your acquaintance. My name is Rick.”

  
Then Philip allows as how it's probably time they had a talk, so Rick follows along behind him dutifully, tracing the familiar path up to Philip's refitted apartment. He's moved a version of the head-tank-watching barcalounger he had in Milton's wrecked lab back out into the living room and the bed in where Penny used to “sleep,” but otherwise, everything pretty much the same.

  
“Care for a drink?” Philip asks, automatically, moving for the drawer where he keeps his whisky. But Rick shakes his head.

  
“I'll pass, thanks.”

  
“Huh, all right. Gone teetotaller on me, in your old age?”

  
“Not a lot of booze on tap up there at the prison, that's true—they're more concentrated on staples than luxuries, in the main. 'Sides which, I need to keep a level head, we're gonna have the kind of conversation we need to.”

  
Philip laughs a bit at that, eye gone wary; “Well, that's ominous,” he remarks, to no one in particular.

  
“Doesn't have to be,” Rick replies, crossing to the window, pulling the shade. “I just need to know one thing 'fore we start over, like you said you wanted: you really going to leave them alone, up at the prison? Can I rely on that?”

  
“Said I would, didn't I?”

  
“You've said a lot of things, over the years.”

  
“Yes I have, and some of 'em've even been true, on occasion. But what, I have to prove my credentials to you, now? Don't you trust me anymore, Richard?”

  
“I want to.”

  
“Then do. All it takes it a little faith.”

  
Then Philip puts his arms around him, and Rick lets himself be drawn in, unresisting; gives himself up to Philip's mouth, his tongue, the old sparks. Wishes he couldn't feel it anymore, but there it is nonetheless, lighting his spine like a fuse: that hot pull, mashing them together 'til they break apart, hearts stuttering.

  
“I wanted to hate you, when I saw what you'd done to this town,” Philip growls into Rick's ear, hands roaming possessive over the rest of him. “Thought I maybe wanted you dead, for what you did—cut you apart piece by piece, put you in a tank, watch you float there hungry the rest've my days, and after. But I don't want you like that, not really. I want you here, with me.”

  
“I know, Philip.”

  
“You're the one, Rick, the only one—you see me for what I am, accept it even, and that's why you're the single person who really matters to me, in the end. 'Cause folks here in Woodbury mostly believe whatever I come up with, and that does get a bit boring, sad to say; I can turn 'em this way and that, make 'em think my ideas are their own, and some days I just want to tell 'em to drink the damn Kool-Aid, just to see if they'd do it...which they actually might, believe it or not, if it all came to it. All except you.”

  
So they kiss again for a while, grinding each against each like they did those first heated days and nights, when they could barely stand to keep their hands off of each other. 'Til Philip pulls back a bit once more, that is, and sighs, reluctantly admitting—

  
“Let's be serious, though...Shane, he's a hard man, and Daryl, he hates me bad, because of Merle—he's never gonna agree to just live and let live. Morgan either, probably. That Michonne, meanwhile...she'd break in here tonight if she could, decapitate me in my sleep. You know I'm right, don't you?”

  
“You're not wrong, no.”

  
“No,” Philip repeats. “So...to tell you the absolute truth, we _are_ gonna have to take that prison sometime, after all—not immediately, not anytime soon. But eventually.”

  
“Uh huh,” Rick agrees, totally unsurprised.

  
“Best thing for Lori, really, and Carl, you can see that. And that little girl of hers, too...”

  
“Judith.”

  
“Great choice, that; Biblical. My old man would've loved it. Better name for a kid than Penny, by far.”

  
Then there's a pause, and Rick leans into Philip's chest, hearing the taller man's breath come and go like wind, like rain, the gathering goddamn storm: _I'm never gonna stop, and it's all your fault._ Thinks for a second about how his life might've been if certain stuff hadn't happened, and exactly how far back he'd have to go, to find the truly pivotal event in question: long before Z-day, obviously, before the hospital, the road to Atlanta; in the car with Shane, maybe, shooting the shit about Lori while waiting at that roadblock. Wishing that poor Mrs Blake hadn't taken that last curve quite so sharp, and Penny was still alive, keeping her Daddy happy as he could allow himself to be under the circumstances, living in a world that hadn't yet proclaimed him warlord-king of Woodbury. That Rick could have seen Carl get older and gotten old himself, eventually, watching it happen.

  
 _I went the wrong way, that's all,_ Rick thinks, feeling Philip's pulse through his shirt, his skin, strong and dark as his own; _met the wrong person, made the wrong best friend. Could have happened to anyone. But we found each other, fit all each other's holes, and now we're stuck—inseperable, I don't want everyone else around us being always made to suffer. So I do have to take some small responsibility for that, from now on, if I'm being anything like honest._

  
“Be good if I could depend on you, Rick, when the time comes,” Philip tells him, low enough to rumble, and well aware of what that specific pitch tends to do to Rick's insides. “Can I, though? Even after all that's passed between us?”

  
“Oh, absolutely,” Rick lies, without hesitation. “But, you see...it's too late. They're already gone.”

  
“'Scuse me?”

  
“Philip, c'mon—we both know you heard me the first time, so let's not pretend you didn't. Couldn't fail to, really, what with both of us already close enough to put our hands down each other's pants.”

  
And there it is, finally—the moment Rick's been waiting the last three whole years for, without ever knowing it. Where he finally gets to say something makes the _Governor_ do a double-take for once, almost hard enough to make his eye cross.

  
“I... _what_ did you...? Don't think I must've—”

  
But: “Oh, Philip,” Rick says, a bit sadly, though not really. “What you need right now is just to sit your ass down, and shut the hell up.”

  
Then gives him a push, sharper than Philip's obviously prepared for, that sends him toppling backwards into the barcalounger, sprawled in surprise; sits down on him, bodily—right plump in his lap, impact all but forcing the air from his lungs, sending it out in one big huff—and grabs him by both ears, pulls him up, kissing him again, and again, and again. Does it every time Philip opens his mouth to try to protest, try to lie, try to charm, 'til at last he finally stops doing any of the above and just lies there instead, so violently aroused it looks for all the world like he's decided to hide that big-ass knife of his in his crotch.

  
“Here's how it's gonna be,” Rick informs him, at last, with one finger set to Philip's friction-burnt mouth, strict as any school-teacher and brooking no back-talk. “I sent my wife away, my son, the oldest friend I have, 'cause I knew they'd never be safe so long as we were together. Which means you _won,_ Philip, in case you're still confused—I chose you over them, forever, and the way I see it, you really do sort of owe me something for that, from now on.  Like...big-time.”

  
Philip stares up at him, licking his lips. Then says, after a pause so long Rick almost thinks he's finally managed to cut the connection between brain and mouth, through sheer overload—

  
“...what've you got in mind, exactly?”

  
They stagger back into the bedroom together, already entwined, and fall onto the bed. "Let me see," Rick says, reaching for the eyepatch as Philip's struggling to get his erection-deformed boxers down over his hips, before he can quite think to pull back; shifts it aside gently, takes a look at what lies underneath, grimaces. Philip watches him do so throughout, sidelong, and gives a bitter little laugh. "Pretty, huh?" he asks, obviously not expecting agreement.

  
"Yeah, that's not good. Doc Stevens gonna take the rest out before it rots, or what?"

  
Philip shakes his head. "Wound's scarring over just fine, so she says leave it in--be more dangerous to try and extract, at least before the whole thing's dead, and I assume she knows more about than I do." He pauses. "Does hurt, though, from time to time; wouldn't think it would, would you? Given there's nothing there _to_ hurt, anymore."

  
"Hershel Greene says he can still feel his leg," is all Rick can think to offer, in return, as he unzips himself, which just makes Philip laugh again. "Good for him," he replies.

  
Rick raises his arms, wincing, to let Philip help pull his shirt off, and watches the Governor react to the still-ripe range of bruises thus revealed. “I do that?” he asks, disingenuously, tracing them.

  
“Who the hell else?”

  
“Well.” Not much of an apology, but it'll have to do: “That won't happen again.”

  
“You're damn right, it won't.”

  
Philip's remaining eye blinks, offended. “Wouldn't've happened the first time either, you hadn't—” he starts to snap, only to have Rick counter: “Remember what I said a minute ago, 'bout shutting the hell up?”

  
Then he's on top of him again, sliding into place, working them hard together and kissing Philip at the same time, 'til they both start to gasp. Slides down a bit, sucking and biting, coaxing a hickey like the one Philip left on him that first night into bloom right over one of the Governor's nipples and grinning at the way it makes him groan, before sinking even further and trying again, on something considerably more sensitive. 

  
So it goes, on and on and on, with Rick careful to stay very firmly in control of the situation, to Philip's own mixed surprise and pleasure—the dubious thrill of being acted upon instead of acting, of being _served._ And though it takes building up to, foreplay and lube and such—since they never _have_ gone here before, no matter what Merle Dixon might've liked to think—that's how Rick eventually finds himself tall in the saddle again, bearing down, as Woodbury's tyrant pants and sweats against the mattress underneath him. 'Cause this is one way in which Rick being smaller works twice as well as the opposite, in context—he goes at things slow, shallow, and it still hurts just as good as you'd think, for the both of 'em. Philip's painful-tight and Rick's painfully hard, bending to lick sweat along the other man's working jaw, that strip where the hinge-muscle flutters; bites down just enough to draw a growl, then thrusts in sharp and fast, as though to punish. It's a petty version of revenge, considering, and they both seem to know it...but damn, if it doesn't seem to turn Philip on just as much, to let him.

  
 _Such a_ big _man,_ Rick thinks, his climax building like a hill-climbing train, all but impossible to stop. _Gotta be a strain, trying to be on top all the time; goddamn exhausting, really. But I got the cure for that._

And the next thing he knows, he's making a noise like some sort of bull in heat, layered neatly overtop of the equally hoarse holler Philip apparently can't stop himself from letting fly with, in return.

  
After, Philip takes a minute to roll his neck and stretch, quite hilariously satisfied. “ _That's_ gonna leave a mark,” he announces, as though anyone was actually waiting for a verdict. And: “It damn well should,” Rick murmurs back, exhausted, before burrowing into the rucked nest of sheets, listening as Philip's breath slows 'til it becomes a snore.

  
The rest of the world dims, taking him down along with it.

  
Then it's early morning, and Rick opens his eyes to find the Governor looking down at him shrewdly, eyepatch almost hidden by a fall of mussed hair. “So,” he says, “power behind the throne, huh?”

  
Rick shrugs. “Someone has to do it,” he replies, without hesitation, “and you'd rather it was me—said so yourself, Philip, I don't have to make it up.” Then adds, while Philip pauses to mull the implications over: “Listen, you want to be up in front, and I'm fine with that; I'll stand behind or beside, whichever best lets me protect you from your own bad ideas. You can proclaim yourself king of Georgia if you want, just like Merle said, and I'll kill myself helping make it so. But from now on, you need to listen to me—no more lies, no more drinking, no more goddamn zombie heads. Either you accept you got no power over me 'cept what I'm willing to give you, or you just go on ahead and kill me now—do it quick, then wait for me to come back and see if you like me better, that way.”

  
Philip takes a deep breath, then blows it back out again, amazement writ large on every angle of him. “You really are some piece of work, aren't you, Officer Grimes?” he says, eventually, with something very close to admiration. “Plus not a bit like my brother, all's said and done, in more than the most glancing respects.”

  
“True enough,” Rick agrees. “And it only took me sticking my dick in you 'til it hurt, for you to finally notice.”

  
Thinking, as Philip laughs long and loud at that, admirably over himself right this moment, in the lingering afterglow: _'Cause I do believe I've worked it out at last, Governor, what makes the fuel you run on—equal parts guilt 'cause you hated the world the way it was before enough to wish it gone, and fierce happiness over how one fine day, you woke up to find that it_ was. _Which makes you some kind'a monster, and a powerful one, to boot...but hell, I'm in the same boat, so I won't judge; let's us be monsters together, you and me. Save who we can, share the dregs of this broken world between us, and the devil take the hindmost._

  
And it's almost as if Philip can hear him, for this is where he stops mid-guffaw and turns over, staring up at ceiling, a curious look in his eye. Saying, after a pause: “Gonna have find ourselves another threat to whip these good people up against, though, and soon, Richard—so we can keep 'em on their toes, make Woodbury just as strong as it's gonna have to be, in future. You do know that.” 

  
“Yup. So it's just as well there's no shortage of those, I'll bet, with the world the way it is now.” 

  
“Mmmm. Out by the tank camp, for example—Pete and Mitch tell me they found other settlements where it looked like some sort of gang'd passed through; women and kids raped, everybody killed, all that. Career criminal stuff. You'd have a pretty specific interest in stopping that sort of behaviour, I'd think, given your training.” 

  
Rick nods, offering: “Or, then again...up near the prison, Shane's bunch found signs posted all along the railroad tracks, talking 'bout some place called Terminus. 'Those who arrive survive.' Talks up food and shelter, lures people in with hope...” 

  
“...then makes 'em do all the work, deliver themselves all neatly-wrapped and such, before springin' the trap; yeah, that's a good con, all right. Anybody ever come back from this place to tell of it, you know of?” 

  
“No idea,” Rick says. 

  
“Complete mystery as to what they might be doing to the people who take 'em up on their generous offer, then.” 

  
“Killing them and takin' their stuff, I shouldn't wonder,” Rick replies, yawning. “Or maybe something worse.” 

  
After which there's another lull in the conversation, both of them lying silent, almost long enough for Rick to doze off, ever so slightly—but he jerks back awake when Philip lays a hand on his shoulder and looks up once more, ready for almost anything. Waiting to hear what the Governor has in mind and already composing himself to figure out how it can best be brought to birth, without hurting anybody beyond the essential. 

  
“Be one big pile of stuff, if so,” Philip notes, finally. And smiles, wide as any shark. 

  
THE END


End file.
